Transcript Land Cover Mapping of Iceland and Southern Greenland Global Land Cover 2000 S.

Land Cover Mapping of Iceland
and Southern Greenland
Global Land Cover 2000
S. Bartalev (JRC EC), V. Egorov (IKI RAN)
and E. Bartholomé (JRC EC)
Features of regions’
environment and land cover

Duration of vegetation season is extremely
short and does not exceed three months

Vegetation is mainly presented by tundra type
plants adapted to severe climate

Land cover is highly degraded as result of
intensive human impact

Volcanic activity results in extensive lava
fields and specific atmospheric conditions

Glaciers and permanent snow are significant
components of the land cover
Link to Circumpolar Arctic
Vegetation Map
 Map legend and
classes definitions
are adopted
 Greenland land
cover map is involved
as reference data
 Iceland land cover
is not completed in
the CAVM
Iceland Vegetation Map
 Iceland Vegetation
Map was used as a
reference data
 Correspondence
of the map legend
classes to the CAVM
definitions were
taken into account
Scale 1: 500.000
SPOT 4 - VEGETATION data

Both standard data products S1 and
S10, including spectral channels and
NDVI, for the year 2000 were investigated

Initial data set covers whole year, but
because of low Sun elevation the data
products contain nonzero values for the
period from March until October only

Angular dependence of reflectance
properties were not taken into account
Methodological approach

Detection of pixels contaminated by
clouds, non-permanent snow/ice and defective
SWIR detectors

Synthesis of spectral channels' mosaics for
certain time intervals with use of noncontaminated data only

Land cover types classification (hybrid
supervised and unsupervised approach) using
mosaics of spectral channels
Signatures of the land cover
classes and clouds :
Rred  Rswir
NDSI 
Rred  Rswir
NDSI
NDSI and RED-channel bi-dimensional space
Water
Snow/Ice
Clouds
Vegetation
Red channel
Contaminated pixels detection
Step 1: Detection of the pixels related to snow
R (,t*)  0.1 AND NDSI (,t*)  0.2
blu
Step 2: Detection of the pixels contaminated by clouds
R (,t*)  0.1 AND 0.2  NDSI (,t*)   0.2
blu
Step 3: Detection of the pixels contaminated by defective
SWIR detectors (two iterations)
|R
(*,t)  M
(*,t) |  2
(*,t) where
swir
swir
swir
Rred  Rswir
NDSI 
Rred  Rswir
- reflectance in the Blue, Red and SWIR channels
R
,R ,R
blue red swir
R
M

R
swir - the mean of swir , swir - standard deviation of swir
Estimation of the time window
for mosaics' synthesis
0,8
0,7
0,6
NDVI
0,5
0,4
0,3
0,2
0,1
0
-0,1
1
3
5
7
9
11
13
15
17
19
21
23
25
27
29
31
33
35
-0,2
Decades of the year 2000
Grassland / Shrubland


Heath / Moss
Snow cover is present most of the time during the year
Vegetation growing season is nearly ten decades
Summer mosaics of Iceland
derived from S1 and S10 products
SWIR NIR Red
SWIR NIR Red
derived from S1 products
derived from S10 products
Period considered is June-August of 2000
Iceland‘s monthly mosaics
derived from S1 products
June
July
SWIR NIR Red
August
Land Cover Map legend
Barren tundra
Dry to wet barren regions with sparse, lichens, mosses,
scattered herbs
Prostrate shrub tundra
Dry to moist tundra with patchy dwarfed or semi-erect shrubs
<15 cm tall, sedges and lichens are also common
Sedge tundra
Moist tundra dominated by sedges with dwarf and erect shrubs
mostly <40 cm tall, mosses are abundant
Dwarf-shrub tundra
Tundra regions dominated by erect shrubs mostly < 40 cm tall
Low-Shrub tundra
Tundra regions dominated by erect shrubs mostly > 40 cm, but
< 2 m tall
Wetlands
Wetland complexes dominated by sedges, grasses and
mosses, erect shrubs are also common
Bare soil and rock
Never has vegetation cover of any kind
Permanent snow/ice
Snow/ice present throughout the year
Water bodies
Open water fresh or salt including seas, lakes, reservoirs and
rivers
Urban
Buildings, roads and other structures of anthropogenic origin
Land cover classification
Reference
Vegetation Map
of Iceland
Iceland
monthly
mosaics
Unsupervised
classification
Island labeled
clusters map
Reference
clusters’
signatures
Merging into
thematic
classes
Land Cover
Map
Greenland
monthly
mosaics
Supervised
classification
Greenland
labeled
classes map
 unsupervised
classification of Iceland
with referencing to
Vegetation Map of
Iceland
 supervised
classification of
Greenland by using
Iceland labeled clusters
map reference signatures
 merging of Iceland and
Greenland labeled
clusters into thematic
classes
The land cover of Southern
Greenland and Iceland
The land cover of Iceland
Statistic of land covered classes
Iceland
Southern Greenland
terrestrial covering (%)
terrestrial covering (%)
Barren tundra
27,7
5,8
Prostrate shrub tundra
9,2
2,6
Sedge tundra
28,2
3,7
Dwarf-shrub tundra
3,7
<1
Low-Shrub tundra
3,7
<1
5
<1
Bare soil and rock
10,9
<1
Permanent snow/ice
11,5
87,8
Land type
Wetlands
Conclusions

Essential advantage of S1 data product in comparison
to S10 data product for land cover mapping over
Iceland and Greenland was demonstrated

Hybrid of unsupervised and supervised classification
approach for Iceland and Southern Greenland land
cover mapping was applied to cover the lack of
reference data

Interaction with CAVM project and feedback from users
of the product is expected to examine and improve
quality of land mapping if necessary