Impervious surface Mapping and its spatial–temporal evolution analysis in the Yellow River Delta over the last three decades using Google Earth Engine

The unique geographical location of the land-sea transition makes the ecological environment of the Yellow River Delta very fragile and vulnerable to human activities. As one of the characteristics of anthropogenic activities, monitoring the spatiotemporal changes of impervious surface area (ISA) is of great significance to the protection of the ecological environment in the Yellow River Delta (YRD). Based on the Landsat historical images and computing resources provided by Google Earth Engine (GEE), an ISA mapping method was developed through combining spectral, texture features and random forest algorithm, and subsequently was applied to generate the spatiotemporal distribution data of ISA of the YRD for 1992, 1998, 2004, 2010, 2016 and 2021. The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed method achieved satisfactory accuracy, with an average overall accuracy of 92.23% and an average Kappa coefficient of 0.9090. Through further time-series analysis of ISA, it found that the area of ISA in the YRD increased from the initial 394.87 km² to 1081.74 km² during study periods, and the annual growth rate broke through new highs, ranging from the initial 1.01 km²/year to 67.87 km²/year. According to the research results, urban development activities in the region should be strictly restricted in order to protect the ecological environment of the YRD.