Accuracy of land cover area estimated from coarse spatial resolution images using an unmixing method

Abstract

Many techniques intended to estimate land coverage of multiple categories occupied within each pixel from such coarse resolution data have been proposed. However, in traditional unmixing studies with coarse resolution imagery such as Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data, it is assumed that only a few endmembers exist throughout an entire image. Therefore, it is essential to evaluate how well an unmixing method would work for various categories within pixels of coarse resolution images. In this study, the land coverage of eight classes in National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) AVHRR imagery by using finer resolution Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) imagery was estimated, and the accuracy of these estimated classes was evaluated. The results suggest that this method may be generally useful for comparing multi-spectral images in space and time.