ALPMON FINAL REPORT - ARC systems research

Contract ENV4-CT96-0359 ALPMON
wherein the NDVI was calculated analogue to classification result 3. The first part of this investigation
will be published in the near future (Catalini, 2000).
2.3.5.5 Conclusion
The results produced by ALPMON cover most of the user requirements as stated in 2.3.5.2.2. From
the eight required applications listed in Table 8, only one application was tested by the SNP for its
feasibility. All the classification results delivered to the SNP (Table 9) have been integrated into two
ongoing mountain ungulate projects. The monitoring of grazing areas of red deer is one of the
applications for which classified remotely sensed data serves as input to better understand the habitat
analysis of red deer. Information on the distribution of grassland at different times of the year and open
forest shows potentially used grazing areas. Classification results were also used to build a virtual
world for the red deer, in order to model their behaviour. Results of the feasibility of these satellite
classifications have not been established yet, as the work is still ongoing.
The remaining applications have not been tested by the customer for the following reasons:
� Many applications require that the inventoried vegetation parameters have a minimum area of
20x20m. This could not achieved, since the highest spatial resolution was 30m (Landsat TM) for
multi-spectral satellite data, which has the necessary near-infrared and SWIR (short wave infrared)
bands for the required vegetation investigations. Unfortunately, no SPOT data (20m) was
available. For the monitoring of geomorphologic processes (erosion, rock slides), 6mpanchromatic
satellite data was tested.
� The spatially comprehensive inventory of trees species composition and forest stand density could
not be provided with a sufficient accuracy. As a consequence of the mediocre results, the
classification of forest age class was omitted. Probably for this reason, applicability of the
classification results for a number of listed applications was not followed through, since all of these
categories were needed.
� The research carried out on mountain ungulates is the core research topic of the Swiss National
Park, thus the monitoring of grazing areas of red deer was the most important application. All other
applications have lesser priority, since they are of interest by other researchers not working for the
Swiss National Park, but using the park as their research field.
In conclusion it has to be summarised that the Swiss National Park Administration has been positively
convinced of the use and employment of this modern technology of remote sensing data. Visual
verification of provided classification results has been carried out by our customer. Also, several results
have been delivered as input to different mountain ungulate research projects and diploma theses,
which are still in the process of being analysed. Unfortunately, no feedback on the results of the
integration of satellite image classifications is available, since the classified satellite data is still being
used in ongoing research and management work.
2.3.6 Integration into CORINE-Landcover
2.3.6.1 Introduction and Objectives
Objective of this work package is the investigation on how far the results of ALPMON can be integrated
into EU activities such as the CORINE land cover project. In contrary to the CORINE land cover
project, which is based on visual interpretation of analogue satellite imagery, the ALPMON approach
relies to a high extent on automated processing of digital data.
The aim of the CORINE („Co-ordination of Information on the Environment“) land cover project was to
map the land use / land cover of Europe within the framework of the CORINE Program of the
European Union. The European Environment Agency (EEA) in Copenhagen was in charge of the
CORINE Program; co-ordination and support was performed by the „European Topic Centers on Land
Cover“ (ETC/LC). The Project was carried out by so called „National Reference Centres“ (NRC) in the
member states.
The „Co-ordination of Information on the Environment“ for Europe offers the possibility of comparing
environmental data between the Member States. Furthermore the data can be a useful tool for
environmental applications and research at European level. For this reason it is necessary to have a
unique methodology for collecting the same basic data on land cover / land use for all collaborating
JR, RSDE, ALU, LMU, Seibersdorf, WSL 57