Machine Learning for Automatic Environmental Mapping : When and How
This paper discusses the opportunity of using Machine Learning techniques in an automatic environmental mapping context, as was the case for the SIC2004 exercise. First, the Machine Learning methodology is quickly described and compared to Geostatistics. From there, some clues about when to apply Machine Learning are proposed, and what outcomes can be expected from this choice. Finally, three well known regression algorithms: K-Nearest Neighbors, Multi Layer Perceptron and Support Vector Regression, are used on SIC2004 data in a Machine Learning context, and compared to Ordinary Kriging. This illustrates some potential drawbacks of SVR and MLP for applications such as SIC2004.