Comparison of Deep Learning Approaches in Classification of Glacial Landforms

Abstract

Glacial landforms, created by the continuous movements of glaciers over millennia, are crucial topics in geomorphological research. Their systematic analysis affords invaluable insights into past climatic oscillations and augments understanding of long-term climate change dynamics. The classification of these types of terrain traditionally depends on labor-intensive manual or semi-automated methods. However, the emergence of automated techniques driven by deep learning and neural networks holds promise for enhancing efficiency of terrain classification workflows. This study evaluated the effectiveness of Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) architectures, particularly Residual Neural Network (ResNet) and VGG in comparison with Vision Transformer (ViT) architecture in the glacial landform classification task. By using preprocessed input data from Digital Elevation Model (DEM) which covers regions such as the Lubawa Upland and Gardno-Leba Plain in Poland, as well as the Elise Glacier in Svalbard, Norway, comprehensive assessments of those methods were conducted. The final results highlight the unique ability of deep learning methods to accurately classify glacial landforms. Classification process presented in this study can be the efficient, repeatable and fast solution for automatic terrain classification.