# DeepAqua: Self-Supervised Semantic Segmentation of Wetland Surface Water Extent with SAR Images using Knowledge Distillation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.01698 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.01698/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 12 of its 62 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 2 May 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 12 of 12)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Library](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01703/) (2019)
- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [Swin Transformer: Hierarchical Vision Transformer using Shifted Windows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14030/) (2021)
- [Distilling the Knowledge in a Neural Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.02531/) (2015)
- [Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.00667/) (2022)
- [Knowledge distillation: A good teacher is patient and consistent](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.05237/) (2021)
- [Knowledge Distillation Meets Self-Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.07114/) (2020)
- [Self-supervised learning methods and applications in medical imaging analysis: A survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.08685/) (2021)
- [Creating Something from Nothing: Unsupervised Knowledge Distillation for Cross-Modal Hashing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.00280/) (2020)
- [ArcticNet: A Deep Learning Solution to Classify Arctic Wetlands](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.00133/) (2019)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Deep learning and remote sensing techniques have significantly advanced water monitoring abilities; however, the need for annotated data remains a challenge. This is particularly problematic in wetland detection, where water extent varies over time and space, demanding multiple annotations for the same area. In this paper, we present DeepAqua, a self-supervised deep learning model that leverages knowledge distillation (a.k.a. teacher-student model) to eliminate the need for manual annotations during the training phase. We utilize the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) as a teacher model to train a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) for segmenting water from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images, and to train the student model, we exploit cases where optical- and radar-based water masks coincide, enabling the detection of both open and vegetated water surfaces. DeepAqua represents a significant advancement in computer vision techniques by effectively training semantic segmentation models without any manually annotated data. Experimental results show that DeepAqua outperforms other unsupervised methods by improving accuracy by 7%, Intersection Over Union by 27%, and F1 score by 14%. This approach offers a practical solution for monitoring wetland water extent changes without needing ground truth data, making it highly adaptable and scalable for wetland conservation efforts.