用预计算的遥感嵌入模型,显著提升全球地上生物量估算精度。
Above-ground Biomass Estimation with Geospatial Foundation Models

- 采用预生成的遥感嵌入产品,替代传统冻结编码器方法。
- 基于AlphaEarth嵌入的模型超越了全监督最先进模型表现。
- 在跨区域和跨时间上具有更强泛化能力,适合碳监测应用。
从卫星影像准确估算地上生物量(AGB)对全球碳储量监测至关重要,但仍是极具挑战性的回归任务。地理空间基础模型(GFMs)近年来成为从地球观测数据中提取通用表征的有前景机器学习范式,但其在生物质估算等定量回归任务中的效用尚未充分探索,因多数基准侧重分类与分割。本文使用涵盖多种生态区的机器学习友好型AGBD数据集,构建了全球尺度AGB估算的全面基准。我们区分两种GFM应用方式:(i) 以权重形式分发、用户自行运行的模型,作为冻结编码器在PANGAEA框架下评估;(ii) 以预计算嵌入产品形式分发的模型,评估了AlphaEarth Foundations(AEF)与TESSERA。对比11个PANGAEA上的GFMs及两类嵌入产品与全监督最先进模型,评估其地理与时间泛化能力,并与ESA CCI生物量产品在独立参考数据上进行一致性分析。结果表明,作为冻结编码器的GFMs性能显著低于监督最先进模型,而预计算嵌入产品则表现优异。基于AEF嵌入训练的MLP优于全监督最先进模型,且同一最先进模型在AEF嵌入上(可选地融合部分原始特征)训练后达到最佳整体性能,同时具备更优的空间与时间泛化能力。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Accurate estimation of Above-Ground Biomass (AGB) from satellite imagery is essential for the large-scale monitoring of carbon stocks, yet it remains a challenging regression task at global scale. Geospatial Foundation Models (GFMs) have recently emerged as a promising machine learning paradigm to derive general-purpose representations from Earth observation data, but their utility for quantitative regression tasks like biomass estimation remains largely unexplored, as most benchmarks emphasize classification and segmentation. Here, we present a comprehensive benchmark of GFMs for global-scale AGB estimation using the AGBD dataset, a machine learning-ready benchmark spanning diverse biomes and geographies. We distinguish two ways in which GFMs reach practitioners: (i) models distributed as weights to be run by the user, which we evaluate as frozen encoders within the PANGAEA benchmarking framework; and (ii) models distributed as ready-to-use, pre-computed embedding products, for which we evaluate AlphaEarth Foundations (AEF) and TESSERA. We compare 11 GFMs available on PANGAEA and both embedding products against a fully supervised state-of-the-art (SOTA) model, assess their geographical and temporal generalization abilities, as well as agreement with the ESA CCI biomass product on independent reference data. Our results show that GFMs run as frozen encoders substantially underperform with respect to the supervised SOTA model, whereas pre-computed embedding products prove highly effective. An MLP trained on AEF embeddings outperforms the supervised SOTA model trained on AGBD features, and the same SOTA model trained on AEF embeddings (optionally augmented with selected raw features) achieves the best overall result, while also generalizing better across space and time.
Thank you to arXiv for use of its open access interoperability. PaperDance 不是 arXiv 官方产品;中文卡片由大模型生成,请以原文为准。