A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal

GeoFusion: A hybrid convolutional neural network-transformer model for boreal peatland classification;




AuthorsFarahnakian, Fahimeh; Zelioli, Luca; Farahnakian, Farshad; Middleton, Maarit; Sheikh, Javad; Heikkonen, Jukka

PublisherElsevier

Publication year2026

Journal: Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence

Article number115118

Volume178

ISSN0952-1976

eISSN1873-6769

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.engappai.2026.115118

Publication's open availability at the time of reportingOpen Access

Publication channel's open availability Partially Open Access publication channel

Web address https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engappai.2026.115118

Self-archived copy’s web addresshttps://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/526925405

Self-archived copy's licenceCC BY

Self-archived copy's versionPublisher`s PDF


Abstract

The generation of high-resolution boreal peatland maps through the integration of multi-source remote sensing data provides critical support for greenhouse gas inventories and environmental management. In this study, we propose GeoFusion, a pixel-wise peatland classification architecture that leverages open-access radar imagery from Sentinel-1 and optical imagery from Sentinel-2. GeoFusion combines convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for hierarchical local feature extraction with vision transformers (ViTs) for modeling long-range dependencies, enabling effective fusion of spectral–textural and structural information. The architecture also incorporates data augmentation, multi-head self-attention, and dropout regularization to enhance robustness and mitigate overfitting. Performance was assessed at two classification levels: site type and fertility level, capturing both ecological diversity and functional characteristics of complex peatland ecosystems. Comparative experiments against well-known deep learning models and hybrid Transformer-based models were conducted across three ecologically distinct regions in Finland. The obtained results demonstrate that GeoFusion outperforms other models and achieves average accuracies of 79.25% and 72.68% for fertility-level and site-type predictions, respectively.



Keywords:
deep learningEnvironmental monitoring and managementmulti-sensor fusionPeatland classificationVision transformers

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Funding information in the publication
This work is part of the Advances in Soil Information- MaaTi project funded by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Finland (2021–2022, funding decision VN/27416/2020-MMM-2).


Last updated on 05/08/2026 10:36:29 AM