THE LAND-COVER MAP OF GREAT-BRITAIN - AN AUTOMATED CLASSIFICATION OF LANDSAT THEMATIC MAPPER DATA

The Land Cover Map of Great Britain was produced using supervised maxi mum-likelihood classifications of Landsat Thematic Mapper data. By com bining summer and winter data, classification accuracies were substant ially improved over single-date analyses. The map, based on a 25-m gri d, records 25 cover types, consisting of sea and inland water, beaches and bare ground, developed and arable land, and 18 types of semi-natu ral vegetation. General cover is recorded at a field-by-field scale, w hile key landscape features, with strong spectral signatures, show pat terns down to a minimum mappable unit of 0.125 ha. Comparisons with in dependent ground reference data showed correspondences which varied be tween 67 percent and 89 percent depending on the level of detail at wh ich comparisons were made.