Landsat TM spectral information to enhance the land cover of Scotland 1988 dataset

Application of knowledge for automated land cover change monitoring

“…Baker et al (1991) found that spectral classification of SPOT HRV data alone would not discriminate between semi-natural vegetation types. Whilst Weaver (1987), using simulated Landsat data, concluded that discrimination of moorland vegetation was possible her conclusions have not been endorsed by more recent work that has examined the use of actual Landsat TM data with reference to semi-natural moorland vegetation, such as Wright and Morrice (1997), Gauld et al (1997 and Taylor et al (2000). Wright and Morrice (1997) found it difficult to match LCS88 land cover features to Landsat TM spectral capabilities.…”

“…Whilst Weaver (1987), using simulated Landsat data, concluded that discrimination of moorland vegetation was possible her conclusions have not been endorsed by more recent work that has examined the use of actual Landsat TM data with reference to semi-natural moorland vegetation, such as Wright and Morrice (1997), Gauld et al (1997 and Taylor et al (2000). Wright and Morrice (1997) found it difficult to match LCS88 land cover features to Landsat TM spectral capabilities. Gauld et al (1997) concluded that unsupervised segmentation of Landsat TM imagery division bore little relation to the ecological classes on the ground.…”

“…-spectrally indistinct (Wright and Morrice, 1997); -not necessarily defined on their physical reflectance properties alone, rather by other objectives such as policy (e.g. MLURI, 1993); -only subtly different in botanical terms and class identification may depend on biogeographic context (Comber et al, 2001).…”

“…Holmgren and Thuresson 1998). Due to LCS88 classification detail, this trend is reflected in work that has considered how LCS88 may be updated (Birnie 1996, Horgan et al 1997, Wright and Morrice 1997. This makes sense for two reasons.…”

“…Landsat TM data of the area from 1987 (the nearest date to the air photo survey for which cloud free coverage could be obtained -see Wright and Morrice, 1997) and ETM data from 2000 was registered to British National Grid from Ordnance Survey point map data and resampled to 20m. The 20m cell size was chosen as a compromise between minimising information loss during LCS88 land cover parcel conversion to raster format and maximising the information content of the Landsat imagery.…”