Classification of the Land Cover of a Megacity in ASEAN Using Two Band Combinations and Three Machine Learning Algorithms: A Case Study in Ho Chi Minh City

Accurate classification of land cover data can facilitate the intensive use of urban land and provide scientific and reasonable data support for urban development. Rapid changes in land cover due to economic growth are occurring in the megacities of developing countries more and more. A land cover classification method with a high spatiotemporal resolution and low cost is needed to support sustainable urban development for continuous land monitoring. This study discusses better machine learning algorithms for land cover classification in Ho Chi Minh City. We used band combination 764 and band combination 543 of LANDSAT8-OLI image data to classify the land cover in Ho Chi Minh City by combining three machine learning algorithms: Back-Propagation Neural Network, Support Vector Machine, and Random Forest. We divided the land cover into six types and collected 2221 samples, 60% of which were used for training and 40% for validation. Our results show that using the band combination 764 combined with the Random Forest algorithm is the most appropriate, with an overall classification accuracy of 99.41% and a Kappa coefficient of 0.99. Moreover, it shows a more significant advantage regarding city-level land cover details than other classification products.