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Multitemporal and Multiscaled Fractal Analysis of Landsat Satellite Data Using the Image Characterization and Modeling System (ICAMS)The Image Characterization And Modeling System (ICAMS) is a public domain software package that is designed to provide scientists with innovative spatial analytical tools to visualize, measure, and characterize landscape patterns so that environmental conditions or processes can be assessed and monitored more effectively. In this study ICAMS has been used to evaluate how changes in fractal dimension, as a landscape characterization index, and resolution, are related to differences in Landsat images collected at different dates for the same area. Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data obtained in May and August 1993 over a portion of the Great Basin Desert in eastern Nevada were used for analysis. These data represent contrasting periods of peak "green-up" and "dry-down" for the study area. The TM data sets were converted into Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) images to expedite analysis of differences in fractal dimension between the two dates. These NDVI images were also resampled to resolutions of 60, 120, 240, 480, and 960 meters from the original 30 meter pixel size, to permit an assessment of how fractal dimension varies with spatial resolution. Tests of fractal dimension for two dates at various pixel resolutions show that the D values in the August image become increasingly more complex as pixel size increases to 480 meters. The D values in the May image show an even more complex relationship to pixel size than that expressed in the August image. Fractal dimension for a difference image computed for the May and August dates increase with pixel size up to a resolution of 120 meters, and then decline with increasing pixel size. This means that the greatest complexity in the difference images occur around a resolution of 120 meters, which is analogous to the operational domain of changes in vegetation and snow cover that constitute differences between the two dates.
Document ID
19990113194
Acquisition Source
Marshall Space Flight Center
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Quattrochi, Dale A.
(NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville, AL United States)
Emerson, Charles W.
(Southwest Missouri State Univ. Springfield, MO United States)
Lam, Nina Siu-Ngan
(Louisiana State Univ. Baton Rouge, LA United States)
Laymon, Charles A.
(NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville, AL United States)
Date Acquired
August 19, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 1997
Subject Category
Earth Resources And Remote Sensing
Meeting Information
Meeting: Association of American Geographers
Location: Boston, MA
Country: United States
Start Date: March 25, 1998
End Date: March 29, 1998
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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