Land cover mapping of Mediterranean landscapes, using SPOT4-Xi and IKONOS imagery-A preliminary investigation

摘要: Medium resolution imagery, such as SPOT4 Xi imagery, has often proved to be inadequate when mapping heterogeneous Mediterranean landscapes. Although very high resolution satellite imagery, such as IKONOS, is expected to bring new insight into land cover mapping of such landscapes, there are also limitations in its use.The aim of this study was to investigate an alternative means of mapping Mediterranean landscapes, namely, the potential offered by combining SPOT4 Xi with IKONOS imagery. More specific objectives were:(i) to examine the advantages and disadvantages of IKONOS imagery when used for the aforementioned purpose, and (ii) to investigate if the combined use of the two sensors is technically and financially feasible for this purpose. A region with a typical complex Mediterranean landscape in the island of Crete, Greece, was chosen as the study area. The CORINE classification scheme and the Maximum Likelihood (ML) technique were used.