Abstract
Digital elevation models (DEMs) have shown much potential for use in the extraction of land surface parameters and analysis of the relationship between land surface units and vegetation cover. However, there is lack of studies on the use of SRTM-3 DEM in vegetation studies of mountainous regions. This study is therefore an attempt to relate land surface parameters to vegetation cover in the Obudu mountain region using SRTM-3 DEM and Landsat data. Geomorphometric classification of the land surface was done using an unsupervised ISOCLUST algorithm while vegetation cover classification was done using the supervised approach based on the Maximum Likelihood algorithm. The resultant land surface units and vegetation cover maps were then related using grid-based statistic within the geographic information systems. The overall measure of difference between the two maps yielded a chi-square (d.f. = 24) = 1.9154, p > 0.05. This implies that there is no significant difference between the land surface units and the vegetation cover in the study area. This findings support the use of SRTM-3 for land surface and vegetation mapping where there is no higher quality data, or the cost of obtaining one is inhibitive; a situation that is faced by many developing economies like Nigeria. However, this results should be interpreted and used within the context of the uncertainty that is contained in the SRTM-3 DEM.
Highlights
It has been argued that one of the most important factors for the development of vegetation cover over any land surface is relief (Florinsky & Kuryakova, 1996)
Land surface parameters are commonly used in vegetation mapping (Florinsky & Kuryakova, 1996). These parameters could be combined to produce land surface units which are related to vegetation cover. This could be achieved, the analysis of land surface parameters and land surface units derived from Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM)-3 Digital elevation models (DEMs) in relation to vegetation mapping in mountainous regions have not been adequately examined and documented
The results of the unsupervised ISOCLUST classification of the land surface of the area of interest (AOI) in the Obudu mountainous region is shown in figure 4
Summary
It has been argued that one of the most important factors for the development of vegetation cover over any land surface is relief (Florinsky & Kuryakova, 1996). Land surface parameters (elevation, aspect and slope, etc.) are commonly used in vegetation mapping (Florinsky & Kuryakova, 1996) These parameters could be combined to produce land surface units which are related to vegetation cover. Three main methodological approaches to analysing relationships between vegetation and environmental site factors are discernible in current Geographical Information Systems (GIS) literature (Höersch, Braun & Schmidt, 2002). These are those that analyse relationships between vegetation and (i) direct influence of environmental site factors, (ii) entire set of environmental site factors, be it direct or indirect, and (iii) direct influence of environmental site factors based on the assumption that such influence can be reveal by land surface parameters. Such could assist in land and forest resource management efforts in mountainous areas
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