Land cover mapping in Kochang area of Korea using MASTER (MODIS/ASTER airborne simulator) data

Multispectral airborne data from the NASA MODIS/ASTER airborne simulator (MASTER) were acquired in Kochang area, Korea, during the PACRIM II mission in 2000. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of MASTER data for mapping land cover classes. The 25 bands, including 11 visible and near infrared (VNIR) bands and 14 shortwave Infrared (SWIR) bands, were selected for land cover mapping in the area. Data was calibrated using the flat field method. Various methods, such as Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Minimum Noise Fraction (MNF), were used for feature extraction to determine the inherent dimensionality of the data and to reduce the computational requirement. Spatial texture was extracted from some components obtained from above transforms. Vegetation Index was also computed from the calibrated data. Selected components, texture, and vegetation Index were combined for land cover mapping. Maximum likelihood was utilized for classification using different data combinations. The study showed that different land cover classes could be discriminated from MASTER data using contemporary data processing strategies. Further work is planned to fuse MASTER data and KOMPSAT EOC data as well as other available data for land cover classification.