1. Pre-Processing Techniques for SWReGAP Land Cover Analysis Southwest Regional GAP Project Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah US-IALE 2004, Las Vegas, Nevada: Transdisciplinary Challenges in Landscape Ecology T. Scott Schrader New Mexico Cooperative Fish & Wildlife Research Unit New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM

2. Initial Technical Steps in Production of Land Cover Data ETM+ Characteristics and MRLC Atmospheric Standardization Techniques Cloud/Shadow Elimination

3. LandSat 7 ETM+ Spatial Resolution: 30m pixels, 172km 2 Spectral Resolution: 6 bands + Temporal Resolution: Worldwide 16 days

4. MRLC Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) Consortium established 1992, revised 2001 Consolidation of the acquisition of remote sensing data for multiple agency use EPA, USGS, NBS, BLM, NOAA, NASA, USFS, EROS…

5. MRLC 3 Seasons: Green up, leaf on, leaf off < 15% cloud cover Geometric terrain correction NALPS format Standardized projection Instrument artifacts removed

6. Atmospheric Standardization What is it? Why is it needed? Tools for three methods of Standardization

7. Atmospheric Standardization Tools

8. Areas Contaminated by Clouds/ Shadows

9. Outline Cloud/Shadow Areas

10. Excise Contaminated Areas

11. Start labeling Cloud/Shadows

12. Labels Complete

13. Recode Cloud/Shadow

14. Clean Up Procedures Clump: Mark pixels that are isolated Eliminate: Replace isolated pixels with surrounding values Neiborhood: Buffer areas slightly to include mixed pixels at edges

15. Clouds/Shadows Masked

16. Clouds/Shadows Removed

17. Summary ETM+ appropriate for regional land cover mapping Atmospheric standardization to reduce scene to scene variability Mask areas to provide the best possible “canvas” to characterize land cover

18. For More Information ETM+: http://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/IAS/handbook/ handbook_toc.html MRLC: http://landcover.usgs.gov/

19. For More Information Standardization Tools: http://www.gis.usu.edu/projects/swregap/ ImageStandardization.htm SWReGAP: http://fws-nmcfwru.nmsu.edu