The Vegetation and a Landsat Assisted Land Cover Map of the Barrow Region, Northern Alaska

"Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and Multispectral Scanner (MSS) imagery at two different spatial scales were employed during this research effort to provide two medium scale (1:63,360) vegetation maps of the Barrow Region on Alaska's North Slope. Detailed field sampling facilitated a site specific accuracy assessment of the digital classification to provide clues as to the reliability of each map. A comparison of the resultant map products was conducted to assess the effect of the resolution of satellite data on the investigator's ability to accurately interpret vegetation pattern in Arctic tundra. Accuracy assessment of the TM and MSS derived map products indicates that both types of remotely sensed imagery are limited in their ability to accurately represent specific vegetation types at the chosen map scale. The TM instrument, with its improvements in spatial, radiometric, and spectral resolution over the MSS sensor, produced a significantly more accurate vegetation map than that derived from the MSS data. It is concluded that the Landsat derived land cover maps prepared during this investigation provide information on the distribution of general vegetation types across the Barrow Region, but do not provide accurate site-specific vegetation data"--Leaf ii