Forestry information content of Thematic Mapper data

Abstract This paper provides an initial investigation of the spectroradiometric data structure and information content of Thematic Mapper (TM) data for some Canadian forest-cover types. The Dryden-Lac Seul region in western Ontario is an important commercial and tourist area containing mainly boreal forest. A LANDSAT-4 TM scene of this region was analysed in conjunction with a considerable amount of ancillary data. The data were reduced to a manageable volume by selectingsubscenes;a preliminary attempt at atmospheric correction and radiometric calibration was then carried out; polygons representing a wide variety of cover classes were defined and, finally, the spectroradiometric information available for class discrimination was analysed using several techniques. Principal component analysis and feature selection reveal that the spectral data can be reduced to three eigenvectors with a loss of less than 10 per cent of the scene variance, and that the best three TM bands perform almost as wellas the first ...