HR: 13:40h
AN: B23F-01 INVITED    [Abstracts]
TI: Trends in Mapping, Measuring, and Monitoring Land Cover Change
AU: * Loveland, T R
EM: loveland@usgs.gov
AF: U.S. Geological Survey, Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science, Sioux Falls, SD 57198, United States
AU: Hansen, M
EM: matthew.hansen@sdstate.edu
AF: South Dakota State University, Geographic Information Sciences Center of Excellence, Brookings, SD 57007, United States
AB: The necessity for improved maps and statistics documenting the rates and characteristics of land cover change from local to global scales has been driven by the acceptance that land change has pervasive and substantial environmental consequences. The expanding need for accurate land cover change characteristics data over long time periods and large geographic areas has stimulated both methodological and mission advances. Two important methodological advances include the use of the continuous fields approach for quantifying key landscape characteristics including vegetation cover and surface imperviousness, and the increased emphasis on using probability sampling to precisely estimate land cover change rates. We are using Landsat-based sampling within ecoregions to assess 1972-2000 land change in the United States. An additional methodological trend is the use of multi-source remotely sensed data for land cover change assessments. An example that blends these three elements is our use of MODIS and Landsat to map and measure 2000-2005 global deforestation. MODIS forest fraction maps provide an annual source of forest change locations that provides an efficient means to stratify probable change. Automated classification of randomly sampled Landsat scenes provide a means for detecting forest change within forest biomes and generating precise estimates of period deforestation. Studies such as this are enabled by the NASA Earth Observing System program and the NASA-USGS Landsat Data Continuity Mission. Together, these missions extend the global Earth observation record to unprecedented levels and enable new generations of detailed land change assessments.
DE: 0439 Ecosystems, structure and dynamics (4815)
DE: 0480 Remote sensing
DE: 1632 Land cover change
SC: Biogeosciences [B]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting