Production of land cover map of Asia, Central Asia, and Middle East

with emphasis of the development of ground truth database

Ryutaro Tateishi, Hiroshi Sato, and Zhu LinCenter for Environmental Remote Sensing (CERe

S), Chiba UniversityJapan

E-mail: tateishi@ceres.cr.chiba-u.ac.jpURL: http://asiaserv.cr.chiba-u.ac.jp/frame.htm

Outline

Production of land cover map - Geographic area - Legend - Ground truth data - Classification - Validation

Development of ground truth database - Global Land Cover Ground Truth Databases

Geographic areas for the mapping

Asia

Central Asia

MiddleEast

ST (Sato & Tateishi) land cover

guideline legend

 

- based on LCCS (FAO)

- modified Stibig’s minimum requirement

- include 65 crop names from FAOSTAT

ST Land Cover Guideline Legend (1/3) 1. Broadleaf Evergreen Forest 101 ~ 111 [Crop list]2. Broadleaf Deciduous Forest 112 ~ 117 [Crop list]3. Needleleaf Evergreen Forest4. Needleleaf Deciduous Forest5. Mixed Forest6. Tree Open 31. Broadleaf Evergreen Woodland 32. Broadleaf Deciduous Woodland 33. Needleleaf Evergreen Woodland 34. Needleleaf Deciduous Woodland

Yellow: classes of GT collection

ST Land Cover Guideline Legend (2/3) 7. Shrub 118, 119 [Crop list] 8. Herbaceous, single layer 9. Herbaceous with Sparse Tree/Shrub10. Sparse Herbaceous / Shrub11. Cropland 120 Rice, paddy 121 ~ 166 [Crop list] ( 104

Coconuts 165 Wheat

)12. Cropland / Natural Vegetation Mosaic13. Tree-Water (Mangrove)14. Wetland15. Lichens / Mosses

ST Land Cover Guideline Legend (3/3)16. Bare 35. Consolidated 36. Bare rock 37. Gravels, stones and boulders 38. Hardpan 39. Unconsolidated 40. Bare soil / Other

unconsolidated materials 41. Loose and shifting sands17. Urban18. Snow / Ice19. Water

Additional classes

201. Forest fire202. Water (60-70%) and many

small islands with sand and salt

(30-40%)

Ground Truth of the whole area338 sites, 31 classes

(17 classes out of them are at global level)

5

1

105

2

Global Land Cover Ground Truth database (GLCGT database)

The GLCGT database consists of regional land cover ground truth (RLCGT) data. The geographical size of a RLCGT data is flexible, from a city size to a continental size.

--- metadata of RLCGT data (text)--- GT land cover code data (raster)--- GT site code data (raster)--- description of GT sites (text)--- optional data (text, raster, or any)

Regional Land Cover Ground Truth Area

Ground Truth of the whole area338 sites, 31 classes

(17 classes out of them are at global level)

Used data

VEGETATION S-10 NDVI data sets

Classification

Maximum Likelihood method

for monthly NDVI (January to November)

Land Cover Classification Result of Asia

Confusion matrix of training data for 17 global level classes (producer’s accuracy)

11 clases are better than 90 % 3 classes are 80-90 % 3 classes are 60-80 % - shrub (75 %), the other parts were classified to bare areas, sparse herbaceous/shrub - herbaceous, single layer (69 %) shrub, herbaceous with sparse tree/shrub, cropland natural vegetation mosaic, needleleaf deciduous forest - herbaceous with sparse tree/shrub (61 %) sparse herbaceous/shrub, cropland natural vegetation mosaic, needleleaf deciduous forest

Validation by Mayaux’s method(for 31 classes, not for 17 global level classes)

Reason of “unacceptable” - three classes of difficult training data - urban - detail classes in bare areas

Conclusions

- Asia, Central Asia and Middle East were classified to 31 land cover types (17 types at global level) by Maximum Likelihood method of monthly NDVI.

- 338 GT sites (1-66 sites for each land cover class) were collected.

- Geographic coverage of GT data is not enough because one type of land cover may have different data characteristics in different regions.

Conclusions (continued)

- Refinement of ground truth data is necessary, especially shrub, herbaceous, and herbaceous with sparse tree/shrub

- Accumulation of ground truth data makes land cover map more accurate.

Recommendation: development of global land cover ground truth (GLCGT) database