EVALUATING SEASONAL VARIABILITY AS AN AID TO COVER-TYPE MAPPING FROM LANDSAT THEMATIC MAPPER DATA IN THE NORTHEAST

Classification of forest cover types in the Northeast is a difficult t ask. The complexity and variability in species composition makes vario us cover types arduous to define and identify. This project employed r ecent advances in spatial and spectral properties of satellite data, a nd the speed and power of computers to evaluate seasonal variability a s an aid to cover-type mapping from Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data in New Hampshire. Data from May (bud break), September (leaf on), and October (senescence) were used to explore whether different leaf pheno logy would improve our ability to generate forest-cover-type maps. The study area covers three counties in the southeastern corner of New Ha mpshire. A modified supervised/unsupervised approach as used to classi fy the cover types. A detailed accuracy assessment was performed to ev aluate the classification. The results indicate that specific northeas t hardwood species can be identified and that time of the pear can sig nificantly affect the cover-type classification accuracy.