Environmental Mapping Based on High Resolution Remote Sensing Data*

Abstract

Iceland is a sparsely inhabited country with important natural resources n the isolated areas. During the last two decades, remote sensing has been used both for monitoring natural resources and for environmental mapping in Iceland. For some purposes it has been noted that second generation satellite sensors such as the Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) have not generated data with high enough spatial resolution. Therefore, high resolution airborne sensors have been designed at the Engineering Research Institute of the University of Iceland in Reykjavik, to collect data with the necessary spatial resolution. These specially designed sensors have spatial resolution of only a few meters compared to the 30m resolution of Landsat TM. In this chapter, the difference between the high resolution data and satellite data is discussed. Also, the need for the high resolution data is justified. Results of experimental studies using the high resolution data are shown. These studies consist of soil erosion mapping. Soil erosion is considered to be the most severe environmental problem in Iceland. The methods applied for soil erosion mapping are based on image processing and computer vision approaches such as non-linear filtering. With the use of the high resolution data not only the current status of the soil erosion but also the spatial distribution of the erosion activity can be mapped and classified adequately.