Land cover mapping in a Salinised Dryland farming area in southeastern Australia using landsat TM data

Abstract

Abstract The changing patterns of dry land salinisation in the Eastern Wimmern area in Southeastern Australia are closely related to changes in regional water balance regimes. Predictive mapping of dry land salinisation in this area requires distributed water balance modelling, for which, timely and accurate information on regional land cover patterns and dynamics from computer‐assisted processing of remotely sensed digital data, although not yet routinely adoptable, is regarded as one of the key inputs. With this purpose in mind, a multispectral classification procedure based on the mosaic model (Jupp 1988) is designed, and applied to a Landsat 5 TM subimage (1024 x 960 pixels) captured on Feb. 21 1988 from the Charlton area of the Eastern Wimmera, using microBRlAN, a PC‐based digital image processing system. Results show that application of the mosaic model to TM data for the Eastern Wimmera can yield 14‐class land cover maps with classification accuracy of 83 ± 7.52 % at the 95% confidence limits.