Remote Sensing–Based Urban Green Space Detection Using Marine Predators Algorithm Optimized Machine Learning Approach

Information regarding the current status of urban green space is crucial for urban land-use planning and management. This study proposes a remote sensing and data-driven solution for urban green space detection at regional scale via employment of state-of-the-art metaheuristic and machine learning approaches. Remotely sensed data obtained from Sentinel 2 satellite in the study area of Da Nang city (Vietnam) are used to construct and verify an intelligent model that hybridizes Marine Predators Algorithm (MPA) and support vector machines (SVM). SVM are employed to generalize a decision boundary that separates features characterizing statistical measurements of remote sensing data into two categories of “green space” and “nongreen space”. The MPA metaheuristic is used to optimize the SVM training phase by identifying an appropriate set of the SVM’s hyperparameters including the penalty coefficient and the kernel function parameter. Experimental results show that the proposed model which processes information provided by all of the Sentinel 2 satellite’s spectral bands can deliver a better performance than those obtained from the model based on vegetation indices. With a good classification accuracy rate of roughly 93%, an F1 score = 0.93, and an area under the receiver operating characteristic = 0.98, the newly developed model is a promising tool to assist local authority to obtain up-to-date information on urban green space and develop plans of sustainable urban land use.