Landsat MSS-derived land-cover map of northern Alaska: Extrapolation methods and a comparison with photo-interpreted and AVHRR-derived maps

Vegetation maps of Arctic areas are needed for a variety of tundra ecosystem and climate change studies and for extrapolating from relatively small, well-known sites to broader regions. We made a preliminary land-cover map of northern Alaska by extrapolating a Landsat Multi-Spectral Scanner (MSS) derived classification of the Kuparuk River Region (KRR) to all of northern Alaska. We used a 26-scene mosaic that was previously made by the EROS Data Center, and a K-means unsupervised classification algorithm to produce eight broad land-cover categories. The northern Alaska-MSS map (NA-MSS) has the following land-cover categories and respective percentage coverage within the 200000km2 Arctic Slope: Dry Prostrate-shrub Tundra and Barrens, 8%; Moist Graminoid, Prostrate-shrub Tundra, 22%; Moist Tussock-graminoid, Dwarf-shrub Tundra, 4%; Moist Dwarf-shrub, Tussock-graminoid, Tundra, 28%; Moist Lowshrub Tundra and other Shrublands, 19%; Wet Graminoid Tundra, 9%; Water, 6%; Clouds and ice, <1%; Shadows, 4%. Ancilla...

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