Comparison and validation of five land cover products over the African continent
(2010) In Lunds universitets Naturgeografiska institution - SeminarieuppsatserDept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science
- Abstract
- Earth surface has always been an interesting scientific study area. it is tightly
connected with other researches such as hydrology, ecosystem, atmosphere and
climate change. Among other options, satellite collected earth surface information has
several advantages including its objectivity, synoptic view, large scale and relatively
short time intervals. A series of satellite derived land cover products were generated to
provide for the science community, some of them are free of access to all users. This
study chooses five free land cover products over the African continent to find out the
similarities (differences) among them, and to find out their classification accuracy by
using Google Earth derived reference data. The five land... (More) - Earth surface has always been an interesting scientific study area. it is tightly
connected with other researches such as hydrology, ecosystem, atmosphere and
climate change. Among other options, satellite collected earth surface information has
several advantages including its objectivity, synoptic view, large scale and relatively
short time intervals. A series of satellite derived land cover products were generated to
provide for the science community, some of them are free of access to all users. This
study chooses five free land cover products over the African continent to find out the
similarities (differences) among them, and to find out their classification accuracy by
using Google Earth derived reference data. The five land cover products are: MODIS,
USGS, UMD, GLC2000 and GlobCover. The results of this study show
understandable agreement across the five land cover products. Discrepancies mainly
attributed to the different data source and generation process used by each land cover
product, furthermore the data pre-process procedures applied to these products in this
study may also share some responsibility. Accuracy assessment shows relatively low
accuracy of about 54% as an average. Reasons for the low accuracy could be the
quality and availability of reference data, and possible biases introduced during visual
interpretation and labeling of validation scenes. The findings of this study suggest
users be cautious about any particular land cover product, aware of their weakness
and strength in their applications. (Less) - Abstract
- Scientific abstract: As the increasing attentions drawn to the environment and climate change issue, the
profound impact on the earth system made known to nearly every corner of the world.
A great variety of global protocols and conventions has been established aiming to
reduce global environmental risks and maintain a healthy earth system. In order to
monitor, supervise these protocols and conventions, science communities have
expressed their urgent need for accurate and up-to-date land cover database. Land
cover products play a very important role in various global change researches such as
climate change, biodiversity conservation, ecosystem assessment, environment
modeling and is in many aspects a foundation platform. This... (More) - Scientific abstract: As the increasing attentions drawn to the environment and climate change issue, the
profound impact on the earth system made known to nearly every corner of the world.
A great variety of global protocols and conventions has been established aiming to
reduce global environmental risks and maintain a healthy earth system. In order to
monitor, supervise these protocols and conventions, science communities have
expressed their urgent need for accurate and up-to-date land cover database. Land
cover products play a very important role in various global change researches such as
climate change, biodiversity conservation, ecosystem assessment, environment
modeling and is in many aspects a foundation platform. This study compares five
freely available and in common used satellite derived land cover products: MODIS
map, USGS-IGBP map, UMD map, GLC2000 map, GlobCover map. They are
produced by different working groups using different sources, characterization
algorithms, and different classification schemes for the same purpose namely to
provide accurate land surface data for the scientific communities. This study put these
land cover products together, compare them with each other and assess them against
an independent set of validation data aiming to find out how different they are, and
how well these land cover product represent the land cover of Africa. The result
shows reasonable agreement among the five land cover products, and reasonable over
all accuracies of 54%. Although substantial discrepancies do exist, to some extent
they can be explained by the data origins and data processing applied in this study.
From analyzing possible reasons that cause the differences,the aim of this study is to
try to provide an insight in these products, reveal their characteristics, explore their
strengths and weaknesses. Hopefully, it could serve as indications to potential users
and provide for future improvement of similar product. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/1969905
- author
- Bai, Ling
- supervisor
- organization
- year
- 2010
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- land cover product validation, land cover products, geography, classification algorithm, classification legend
- publication/series
- Lunds universitets Naturgeografiska institution - Seminarieuppsatser
- report number
- 195
- language
- English
- id
- 1969905
- date added to LUP
- 2011-05-26 12:05:51
- date last changed
- 2011-12-21 10:54:13
@misc{1969905, abstract = {{Scientific abstract: As the increasing attentions drawn to the environment and climate change issue, the profound impact on the earth system made known to nearly every corner of the world. A great variety of global protocols and conventions has been established aiming to reduce global environmental risks and maintain a healthy earth system. In order to monitor, supervise these protocols and conventions, science communities have expressed their urgent need for accurate and up-to-date land cover database. Land cover products play a very important role in various global change researches such as climate change, biodiversity conservation, ecosystem assessment, environment modeling and is in many aspects a foundation platform. This study compares five freely available and in common used satellite derived land cover products: MODIS map, USGS-IGBP map, UMD map, GLC2000 map, GlobCover map. They are produced by different working groups using different sources, characterization algorithms, and different classification schemes for the same purpose namely to provide accurate land surface data for the scientific communities. This study put these land cover products together, compare them with each other and assess them against an independent set of validation data aiming to find out how different they are, and how well these land cover product represent the land cover of Africa. The result shows reasonable agreement among the five land cover products, and reasonable over all accuracies of 54%. Although substantial discrepancies do exist, to some extent they can be explained by the data origins and data processing applied in this study. From analyzing possible reasons that cause the differences,the aim of this study is to try to provide an insight in these products, reveal their characteristics, explore their strengths and weaknesses. Hopefully, it could serve as indications to potential users and provide for future improvement of similar product.}}, author = {{Bai, Ling}}, language = {{eng}}, note = {{Student Paper}}, series = {{Lunds universitets Naturgeografiska institution - Seminarieuppsatser}}, title = {{Comparison and validation of five land cover products over the African continent}}, year = {{2010}}, }