A pixel- and object-based image analysis framework for automatic well site extraction at regional scales using Landsat data

Development associated with oil and gas exploration has expanded rapidly in Alberta and Northwest Territories, Canada. Such explorations result in landscape disturbances including forest cuts, seismic lines, well and waste sites. This paper describes a novel methodology for automatic extraction of well sites from Landsat-5 TM imagery. The method combines pixel-based and object-based image analyses and contains three major steps: geometric enhancement, segmentation, and well site extraction. For accuracy assessment, a small part of the image was used and the results were compared against visual counting of well sites visible in the pan-sharpened image of Landsat-8 of the same area. Results show correctness, completeness and quality factors of 87.3%, 96.2%, and 83.7%, respectively.