Fuzzy Classification of Sub-Antarctic Vegetation on Heard Island based on High-resolution Satellite Imagery

This study presents the first land cover classification of sub-Antarctic Heard Island based on high-resolution IKONOS imagery and a supervised fuzzy classification algorithm. Tran- sition zones between vegetation types and rock are identified and analyzed by using fuzzy membership layers and a confusion measure as a quantification of spatial and thematic uncertainty. This study shows that a combination of high-resolution satellite imagery and fuzzy classification techniques is extremely valu- able for mapping sub-Antarctic vegetation and for quantifying uncertainty related to vegetation transition zones.