In the last decades, the increasing number of new generation satellite images characterized by a better spectral, spatial and temporal resolution with respect to the past has provided unprecedented source of information for monitoring climate changes.To exploit this wealth of data, powerful and automatic methods to analyze remote sensing images need to be implemented. Accordingly, the objective of this thesis is to develop advanced methods for the analysis of multitemporal multispectral remote sensing images to support climate change applications. The thesis is divided into two main parts and provides four novel contributions to the state-of-the-art. In the first part of the thesis, we exploit multitemporal and multispectral remote sensing data for accurately monitoring two essential climate variables. The first contribution presents a method to improve the estimation of the glacier mass balance provided by physically-based models. Unlike most of the literature approaches, this method integrates together physically-based models, remote sensing data and in-situ measurements to achieve an accurate and comprehensive glacier mass balance estimation. The second contribution addresses the land cover mapping for monitoring climate change at high spatial resolution. Within this work, we developed two processing chains: one for the production of a recent (2019) static high resolution (10 m) land cover map at subcontinental scale, and the other for the production of a long-term record of regional high resolution (30 m) land cover maps. The second part of this thesis addresses the common challenges faced while performing the analysis of multitemporal multispectral remote sensing data. In this context, the third contribution deals with the multispectral images cloud occlusions problem. Differently from the literature, instead of performing computationally expensive cloud restoration techniques, we study the robustness of deep learning architectures such as Long Short Term Memory classifier to cloud cover. Finally, we address the problem of the large scale training set definition for multispectral data classification. To this aim, we propose an approach that leverages on available low resolution land cover maps and domain adaptation techniques to provide representative training sets at large scale. The proposed methods have been tested on Sentinel-2 and Landsat 5, 7, 8 multispectral images. Qualitative and quantitative experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the methods proposed in this thesis.

The deep learning technique Human Pose Estimation (or Human Keypoint Detection) is a promising field in tracking a person and identifying its posture. As posture and balance are two closely related concepts, the use of human pose estimation could be applied to fall prevention. By deriving the location of a persons Center of Mass and thereafter its Center of Pressure, one can evaluate the balance of a person without the use of force plates or sensors and solely using cameras. In this study, a human pose estimation model together with a predefined human weight distribution model were used to extract the location of a persons Center of Pressure in real time. The proposed method utilized two different methods of acquiring depth information from the frames - stereoscopy through two RGB-cameras and with the use of one RGB-depth camera. The estimated location of the Center of Pressure were compared to the location of the same parameter extracted while using the force plate Wii Balance Board. As the proposed method were to operate in real-time and without the use of computational processor enhancement, the choice of human pose estimation model were aimed to maximize software input/output speed. Thus, three models were used - one smaller and faster model called Lightweight Pose Network, one larger and accurate model called High-Resolution Network and one model placing itself somewhere in between the two other models, namely Pose Residual Network. The proposed method showed promising results for a real-time method of acquiring balance parameters. Although the largest source of error were the acquisition of depth information from the cameras. The results also showed that using a smaller and faster human pose estimation model proved to be sufficient in relation to the larger more accurate models in real-time usage and without the use of computational processor enhancement. / Djupinlärningstekniken Kroppshållningsestimation är ett lovande medel gällande att följa en person och identifiera dess kroppshållning. Eftersom kroppshållning och balans är två närliggande koncept, kan användning av kroppshållningsestimation appliceras till fallprevention. Genom att härleda läget för en persons tyngdpunkt och därefter läget för dess tryckcentrum, kan utvärdering en persons balans genomföras utan att använda kraftplattor eller sensorer och att enbart använda kameror. I denna studie har en kroppshållningsestimationmodell tillsammans med en fördefinierad kroppsviktfördelning använts för att extrahera läget för en persons tryckcentrum i realtid. Den föreslagna metoden använder två olika metoder för att utvinna djupseende av bilderna från kameror - stereoskopi genom användning av två RGB-kameror eller genom användning av en RGB-djupseende kamera. Det estimerade läget av tryckcentrat jämfördes med läget av samma parameter utvunnet genom användning av tryckplattan Wii Balance Board. Eftersom den föreslagna metoden var ämnad att fungera i realtid och utan hjälp av en GPU, blev valet av kroppshållningsestimationsmodellen inriktat på att maximera mjukvaruhastighet. Därför användes tre olika modeller - en mindre och snabbare modell vid namn Lightweight Pose Network, en större och mer träffsäker modell vid namn High-Resolution Network och en model som placerar sig någonstans mitt emellan de två andra modellerna gällande snabbhet och träffsäkerhet vid namn Pose Resolution Network. Den föreslagna metoden visade lovande resultat för utvinning av balansparametrar i realtid, fastän den största felfaktorn visade sig vara djupseendetekniken. Resultaten visade att användning av en mindre och snabbare kroppshållningsestimationsmodellen påvisar att hålla måttet i jämförelse med större och mer träffsäkra modeller vid användning i realtid och utan användning av externa dataprocessorer.