FoxLaB

Research and Innovation Centre - Fondazione Edmund Mach

Via E. Mach 1, 38010 - S. Michele all’Adige (TN), Italia

phone +39 0461 615 

e-mail: jonathan.chan@fmach.it

Education and training

Jonathan Chan is with Foxlab at the Research and Innovation Centre, Fondazione Edmund Mach. The position is funded under Marie Curie Industry-Academia Partnerships and Pathways (IAPP) program for forest science, in the frame of EU FP7 project ‘Airfors’. He is working with the scientific team in the Centre of Research and Innovation, to investigate the use of very high definition airborne\spaceborne hyperspectral imagery and laser scanning for species identification of forests and biomass estimation.

Jonathan Chan’s background is remote sensing with a special focus on machine learning algorithms for hyperspectral analysis and detailed land cover mapping. Shortly after obtaining his PhD from the University of Hong Kong (1999), he worked as a research scientist at the Geography Department, University of Maryland, College Park, the United States. He was involved in various NASA projects in relation to global mapping using machine learning algorithms (C5.0, Bagging, Boosting). In 2001, he was hired as a post-doc researcher at InterUniversity MicroElectronics Research Center (IMEC) at Leuven, stationed at the Department of Electronics and Informatics (ETRO), at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). He worked on European projects which applied remote sensing methods (thermal infrared continual measurement) for land mines detections as well as risk estimation of a mine-contaminated area using high level features extracted from high definition multispectral images (Ikonos, images gathered from unmanned vehicle). From 2005 to 2011, he was a Doctor Assistant at the Geography Department of VUB where he engaged in teachings at bachelor and master levels for courses relating to remote sensing and Geographical Information Science. At the same time, he was leading research topics for exploitation of airborne and spaceborne hyperspectral remote sensing applications include conservation mapping, ecotope mapping for biodiversity and impervious surface mapping for hydrological modeling. His recent research investigates the use of multi-angle hyperspectral imagery for superresolution image enhancement and its various applications (Ecotope mapping and impervious surface mapping). Students who are interested in pursuing a doctoral degree in related topics are welcome to contact him.

He is part of the Technical and Scientific Committees of IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS) in 2012 and 2013 and has chaired a special session on Superresolution and Subpixel Classification in IGARSS in 2011 and 2012. He has widely published in topics related to detailed land cover classification using remote sensing data and serves as a regular reviewer for remote sensing journals. In 2012, he has been invited as an expert member for EC COST DG-ICT and TDP and external reviewer for the National Research Council of Romanian Government. 

Research interests

Detailed land use (ecotope) mapping from hyperspectral data using machine learning algorithms. Long term monitoring of habitat changes using historical remote sensing data. Subpixel classification. Textural classification. Superresolution methods for hyperspectral imagery.

Peer-reviewed journal papers

1. Chan, J.C.-W., P. Beckers, T. Spanhove and J. Vanden Borre (2012), “An evaluation of ensemble classifiers for mapping Natura 2000 heathland in Belgium using spaceborne angular hyperspectral (CHRIS/Proba) imagery”, International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 18:13-22. DOI: 10.1016/j.jag.2012.01.002. (Impact Factor 1.744, 5-Yr Impact Factor 2.329)

2. Demarchi, L., J.C.-W. Chan, J. Ma and F. Canters, (2012), “Mapping impervious surfaces using MESMA for superresolution enhanced angular hyperspectral (CHRIS/Proba) imagery in Brussels capital region”, ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 72:99-112. DOI: 10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2012.05.015. (Impact Factor 2.885, 5-Yr Impact Factor 3.435)

3. Ma, J., J.C.-W. Chan and F. Canters (2012), “An operational superresolution approach for multi-temporal and multi-angle remotely sensed imagery”, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observation and Remote Sensing, 5(1):110-124, DOI: 10.1109/JSTARS.2011.2182505. (Impact Factor 1.489)

4. Demarchi, L., Canters, F., J.C.-W. Chan and T. Van de Voorde (2012), “Multiple endmember unmixing of CHRIS/Proba imagery for mapping Impervious surfaces in urban and suburban environments”, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 50 (9): 3409-3424. (Impact Factor 2.895)

5. Ampe, E., I. Vanhamel, E. Salvadore, J. Dams, I. Bashir, L. Demarchi, J.C.-W. Chan, H. Sahli, F. Canters and O. Batelaan (2012), “Impact of urban land-cover classification on groundwater recharge uncertainty”, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observation and Remote Sensing, 99:1-9. DOI: 11.1109/JSTARS.2012.2206573. (Impact Factor 1.489)

6. Chen, F., Ma, J., J.C.-W. Chan and D. Yan (2011), “Quantitative measurement for the homogeneity and contrast of the step edges in satellite image point spread function estimation”, International Journal of Remote Sensing, 32(22):7179-7201, DOI: 10.1080/01431161.2010.519007. (Impact Factor 1.117)

7. Chan, J.C.-W., J. Ma, T. Van de Voorde and F. Canters (2011), “Preliminary results of superresolution enhanced angular hyperspectral (CHRIS/Proba) images for land cover classification”, IEEE Transactions Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, 8(6): 1011-1015, DOI (identifier) 10.1109/LGRS.2011.2147277. (Impact Factor 1.56)

8. Bortels, L., J.C.-W. Chan, R. Merken, and N. Koedam (2011), “Long term monitoring of wetlands along the Western-Greek bird migration route using Landsat and ASTER satellite images: Amvrakikos Gulf (Greece)”, Journal for Nature Conservation, 19:215-223, DOI: 10.1016/j.jnc.2011.01.004. (Impact Factor 1.864, 5-Yr Impact Factor 1.985)

9. Chan, J.C.-W., Ma, J., Kempeneers, P. and Canters, F (2010) “Superresolution enhancement of hyperspectral CHRIS/Proba images with a thin-plate spline nonrigid transform model”, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 48(6):2569-2579, ISSN: 0196-2892, DOI: 10.1109/TGRS.2009.2039797. (Impact Factor 2.895)

10. Ma, J., Chan, J.C.-W., Canters, F. (2010), “Fully-automatic sub-pixel registration for multi-angle CHRIS/Proba”, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 48 (7):2829-2839, DOI: 10.1109/TGRS.2010.2042813, 2010. (Impact Factor 2.895)

11. Chan, J.C.-W., Bellens, R., Canters, F. and S. Gautama (2009), “An assessment of geometric activities features for classification of urban man-made objects using meter resolution imagery”, Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing, 75(4): 397-411. (Impact Factor 0.926, 5-Yr Impact Factor 1.566)

12. Chan, J.C.-W. and D. Paelinckx (2008), “An evaluation of Random Forest and Adaboost tree-based ensemble classifications and spectral band selections for ecotope mapping using airborne hyperspectral imagery”, Remote Sensing of Environment, 112:2999-3011. (Impact Factor 4.574, 5-Yr Impact Factor 5.276)

13. Bellens, R., G. Sidharta, Marinez-Fonte, L., Philips, W., Chan, J.C.-W., and, Canters, F., (2008) “Improved classification of VHR images of urban areas using directional morphological profiles “, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 46 (10) 3803-2813. (Impact Factor 2.895)

14. Dahdouh-Guebas, F. Van Hiel, E., Chan, J.C.-W., Jayatissa, L. P. and N. Koedam (2004), “Qualitative distinction of congeneric and introgressive mangrove species in mixed patchy forest assemblages using high spatial resolution remotely sensed imagery (IKONOS)”, Systematics and Biodiversity, 2 (2):113-119. (Impact Factor 2.158, 5-Yr Impact Factor 1.959)

15. Chan, J.C.-W., Laporte, N. and R.S. DeFries (2003), “Texture classification of logged forests in tropical Africa using machine learning algorithms”, International Journal of Remote Sensing, vol. 24, no. 6, 1401-1407. (Impact Factor 1.117)

16. Chan, J.C.-W., Huang, C. and R.S. DeFries (2001), “Enhanced algorithm performance for land cover classification from remotely sensed data using bagging and boosting”, Communications, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 39 (3): 693-695. (Impact Factor 1.56)

17. Chan, J.C.-W., Chan, K-P and A.G-O Yeh (2001), “Detecting the nature of change in an urban environment – A comparison of machine learning algorithms”, Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing, 67 (2): 213-225. (Recipient of the 2002 ERDAS/Leica Geosystems Award for Best Scientific Paper in Remote Sensing) (Impact Factor 0.926, 5-Yr Impact Factor 1.566)

18. DeFries, R.S. and J.C.-W. Chan (2000), “Multiple criteria for evaluating machine learning algorithms for land cover classification from satellite data”, Remote Sensing of Environment, 74: 503-515. (Impact Factor 4.574, 5-Yr Impact Factor 5.276)

Funded projects as a co-promotor (investigator)

2012 – 2014 SIMBA: The Sun-earth Imbalance nanosatellite: A proposal for a 3 unit in demonstration satellite on the QB50 Precursor. Funded by The Belgian Federal Science Policy Office. Partners: Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium (RMIB), LATMOS-CNRS France, University of Liege, Royal Observatory of Belgium.

2009 – 2012 Hyperspectral remote sensing for environment and water management (HYPERENV), HOA Project (Horizontale Onderzoeksacties), funded by Research and Development Council, Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Partners: Cartography and GIS research group (CGIS) in Department of Geography, Hydrology Department (HYDR), Biology Department (APNA) and Department of Electronics and Informatics (ETRO).

2007 – 2010 A classification framework for habitat status reporting with remote sensing methods (HABISTAT), BELSPO, STEREO II (Research Programme for Earth Observation) (2006-2013) 1.12.2006-31.12.2010, in collaboration with Vito, Universiteit Antwerpen, Research Institute for Nature and Forest and Centre for Geo-Information (Alterra) Wageningen, NL.

2004 – 2005 Application of Machine Learning Techniques for Ecotope Classification Based on Hyperspectral Images. Funded by The Belgian Federal Science Policy Office under the call: “STEREO” Research Programme for Earth Observation, The exploitation of instruments aboard aircraft - HyMap 2004 Campaign.

European and International activities

External expert for the National Research Council of Romanian Government 2012

External Expert Panel member for EU COST DC-ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) and TDP (Trans-Domain Proposals) 2012.

Vlaamse Interuniversitaire Raad (VLIR) - University Development Cooperation (UOS). Country-level IUC programmes 2012: Cuba, Tanzania and Vietnam.

Involved projects:

Hué University, Hanoi, Vietnam: “Preservation of the coastal ecosystems and natural resources under the effects of development activities and climate change ”.

The Nelson Mandela African institute of Science and Technology, Arusha, Tanzania: “Identification of soil fertility constraints to agricultural productivity and developing appropriate management interventions for different agricultural systems”.

Academic Exchange Program 2012 with Institute of Remote Sensing Applications at Chinese Academy in Beijing.

Academic exchange program with Remote Sensing Lab at Department of Automation, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Joint Master and Doctoral Program 2012 with Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.

Invited by the Science and Education Ministry of Kazakhstan to teach remote sensing courses in S.Seifullin Kazakh Agro Technical University. 2012.

Supervisor for theses

a. PhDs

1. Land use change under impact of socio-economic development and its implications on environmental services in Vietnam (Student: Hai Pham, on-going)

2. Spectral mixing analysis for urban and sub-urban areas using hyperspectral images (Student: Luca Demarchi, on-going)

3. Superresolution enhancement for multi-angle hyperspectral imagery (Student: Jianglin Ma, completed 2012)

4. Environmental change in Lesotho: An analysis of causes and consequences of land use change in the Lowland region (Student: Pendo Maro, completed 2008)

b. Master

1. GIS multi-cluster modeling of a mine-contaminated risk area using spatial data (Student: Craig Schultz, on-going)

2. Monitoring of Morteratsch Glacier using remote sensing methods. (Student: Matthias Pens, on-going)

3. Quality of migratory bird habitats in Greece (student: Joachim Teunen, completed 2012)

4. Detection of original mangrove in Gaoquiao, China (student: Juan Sebastian Durango Cordero, completed 2011)

5. Ensemble classifiers for ecotope mapping using hyperspectral images (student: Pieter Beckers, completed 2011)

6. Monitoring wetlands along the Western-Greek bird migration route using Landsat and ASTER satellite images (student: Liesbeth Bortels, completed 2009)

7. Temporal Albedo retrieval for snowline delineation using ASTER and Landsat data. (student: Jeremy Van Ophem, completed 2008)

8.Remote sensing study of a possible impact crater: The Luizi structure, Katanga, Congo Democratic Republic. (student: Rutger Dujardin, completed 2007)