Waveband evaluation of proposed thematic mapper in forest cover classification

This study involved the evaluation of the characteristics of multispectral scanner data relative to forest cover type mapping, using NASA's NS-001 multispectral scanner to simulate the proposed Thematic Mapper (TM). The objectives were to determine: (1) the optimum number of wavebands to utilize in computer classifications of TM data; (2) which channel combinations provide the highest expected classification accuracy; and (3) the relative merit of each channel in the context of the cover classes examined. Transformed divergence was used as a measure of statistical distance between spectral class densities associated with each of twelve cover classes. The maximum overall mean pair-wise transformed divergence was used as the basis for evaluating all possible waveband combinations available for use in computer-assisted forest cover classifications.