# Interpretability in Convolutional Neural Networks for Building Damage Classification in Satellite Imagery

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2201.10523 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.10523/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 10 of its 37 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 24 Jan 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 10 of 10)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Library](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01703/) (2019)
- [Grad-CAM: Visual Explanations from Deep Networks via Gradient-based Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.02391/) (2016)
- [xBD: A Dataset for Assessing Building Damage from Satellite Imagery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.09296/) (2019)
- [Building Damage Detection in Satellite Imagery Using Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.06444/) (2019)
- [Building Disaster Damage Assessment in Satellite Imagery with Multi-Temporal Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.05525/) (2020)
- [RescueNet: Joint Building Segmentation and Damage Assessment from Satellite Imagery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.07312/) (2020)
- [An Attention-Based System for Damage Assessment Using Satellite Imagery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.06643/) (2020)
- [Benchmark Dataset for Automatic Damaged Building Detection from Post-Hurricane Remotely Sensed Imagery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.05581/) (2018)
- [Satellite imagery analysis for operational damage assessment in Emergency situations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.00397/) (2018)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Natural disasters ravage the world's cities, valleys, and shores on a regular basis. Deploying precise and efficient computational mechanisms for assessing infrastructure damage is essential to channel resources and minimize the loss of life. Using a dataset that includes labeled pre- and post- disaster satellite imagery, we take a machine learning-based remote sensing approach and train multiple convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to assess building damage on a per-building basis. We present a novel methodology of interpretable deep learning that seeks to explicitly investigate the most useful modalities of information in the training data to create an accurate classification model. We also investigate which loss functions best optimize these models. Our findings include that ordinal-cross entropy loss is the most optimal criterion for optimization to use and that including the type of disaster that caused the damage in combination with pre- and post-disaster training data most accurately predicts the level of damage caused. Further, we make progress in the qualitative representation of which parts of the images that the model is using to predict damage levels, through gradient-weighted class activation mapping (Grad-CAM). Our research seeks to computationally contribute to aiding in this ongoing and growing humanitarian crisis, heightened by anthropogenic climate change.