Remote sensing-enhanced transfer learning approach for agricultural damage and change detection: A deep learning perspective

With the continuous advancement of science and technology, there has been a growing awareness of safety among people worldwide. Natural disasters such as wildfires, earthquakes, and floods pose persistent threats to both lives and property on our planet, which serves as our fundamental habitat. While it is impossible to prevent or entirely avert these calamities, rapid identification of affected areas and prompt damage assessment post-disaster can significantly aid in the formulation of effective rescue strategies, ultimately saving more lives. This article delves into the application of transfer learning in satellite image damage assessment—a methodology that involves transferring previously acquired knowledge to enhance a model's adaptability to new tasks. Given the limited availability of datasets for satellite image analysis, transfer learning proves to be an effective approach. Specifically, the study proposes a transfer learning method based on YOLOv5 for satellite image damage assessment. Initially, a general convolutional neural network model is trained using a substantial dataset of natural images. Subsequently, the early layers of this model are frozen, while the later layers undergo training to adapt to satellite image data. Fine-tuning is then employed to further enhance the overall model performance. The results demonstrate that this approach yields a high accuracy rate in satellite image damage assessment. Moreover, compared to conventional deep learning methods, the proposed method effectively leverages pre-trained models' knowledge, thereby reducing data dependency. Additionally, it displays robust generalization capabilities across diverse tasks and datasets, underscoring its potential for facilitating transfer learning across various domains.