ALPMON FINAL REPORT - ARC systems research

Contract ENV4-CT96-0359 ALPMON
countries. The methodology was developed by the „Joint Research Centre“ (JRC) in Ispra, Italy (EUR
1993).
The methodology is based on visual interpretation of satellite data including the use of ancillary data
(topographical and thematic maps, statistics etc.). The photo-interpretation was performed on the basis
of colour hardcopies of geocoded multi-spectral satellite data in a scale of 1 : 100.000. The different
cover types were mapped according to the CORINE land cover Nomenclature, which consists of 44
different land cover / land use types (Table 10). The surface area of the smallest unit mapped is 25
hectares. For linear elements the minimum width is 100 meters. Finally, the interpretation results were
scanned and integrated into a geographical information system. The digital CORINE land cover data
are stored according to the official topographical map projection system of the single member states.
2.3.6.2 User Requirements
The interest of the NRCs, represented by the Austrian Environment Agency, concentrates on the
possibilities to reduce the effort of visual interpretation and thus the costs of up-dating the CORINE
land cover maps. This could be achieved by applying an automated approach as performed in the
ALPMON project as alternative to photo-interpretation. However, it has to be noticed that formalised
methods of pattern recognition cannot currently replace the ability of a human vision system. On the
other hand they provide reproducible results that are more consistent than the results of visual
interpretation. In addition it might be possible to extract more detailed information to be added as level
4 classes to the CORINE nomenclature. Objective of this work package is thus an evaluation of the
results of the automatic classification performed in ALPMON compared to the original CORINE
interpretation including the introduction of additional level 4 classes.
2.3.6.3 Applied Methods
Compared to the CORINE land cover maps the ALPMON data base has been derived from semiautomatic
classification of digital satellite imagery. According to the processing chain developed in the
course of the ALPMON project the following procedures have been applied:
� Geocoding
� Topographic normalisation
� Atmospheric correction
� Image fusion (optional)
� Numerical classification
The resulting thematic maps refer to the nomenclature defined in the ALPMON project (Table 11).
Minimum mapping unit is the single pixel.
JR, RSDE, ALU, LMU, Seibersdorf, WSL 58