摘要
The compilation of global Landsat data-sets and the ever-lowering costs of computing now make it feasible to monitor the Earth’s land cover at Landsat resolutions of 30 m.In this article,we describe the methods to create global products of forest cover and cover change at Landsat resolutions.Nevertheless,there are many challenges in ensuring the creation of high-quality products.And we propose various ways in which the challenges can be overcome.Among the challenges are the need for atmospheric correction,incorrect calibration coefficients in some of the data-sets,the different phenologies between compila-tions,the need for terrain correction,the lack of consistent reference data for training and accuracy assessment,and the need for highly automated character-ization and change detection.We propose and evaluate the creation and use of surface reflectance products,improved selection of scenes to reduce phenological differences,terrain illumination correction,automated training selection,and the use of information extraction procedures robust to errors in training data along with several other issues.At several stages we use Moderate Resolution Spectro-radiometer data and products to assist our analysis.A global working prototype product of forest cover and forest cover change is included.
基金
support from the NASATerrestrial Ecology Program which led to the creation of LEDAPS on which much of this work is based.We acknowledge the help of two people in particular from USGS EROS:Gyanesh Chander helped to identify the GLS 1990 images that have most recent USGS calibration coefficients(?50%of the GLS 1990 data-set).Rachel Headley helped us obtain the GLS data-sets.She also helped significantly with our reordering of the GLS 1990 images that had good calibration coefficients。
