The significance of spatial resolution - Identifying forest cover from satellite data

The objective of this study was to determine if decreasing pixel size incre ases overall accuracy with which forest species can be separated using sate llite data. Classification accuracy achieved with Landsat Thematic Mapper ( (TM)) channels 2, 3, and 4 were compared with results from SPOT-XS. Referen ce data prepared from enlarged prints of aerial photographs and field check s included 19 cover types, nine of which were coniferous. Results with SPOT -XS alone yielded an overall accuracy of 70.1 percent, and with Landsat (TM ) 57.1 percent at species level. Overall accuracy increased by 3 percent wh en either SPOT-XS or Landsat (TM) data were integrated with SPOT-PAN data.