Mapping hardwood forests through a two-stage unsupervised classification by integrating Landsat Thematic Mapper and forest inventory data

Sound forest management requires accurate forest maps at an appropriate scale. Forest cover data developed at a national scale may be too coarse for forest management at a local level. We demonstrated a two-stage unsupervised classification, integrating Continuous Forest Inventory (CFI) data and Landsat imageries, to classify forest types for Indiana State Forests (ISF) and 8-km surrounding areas. In the first stage, an automatic unsupervised classi- fication assisted by CFI data was applied in ISF. In the second stage, the resultant forest cover information from the first stage was used to expand the classification area into the 8-km sur- rounding areas. Splitting the classification procedure into two stages made it possible to expand the classification area beyond the coverage of the CFI data. This data-aided unsupervised clas- sification approach increased the repeatability of forest mapping. The resultant map contains five forest types: conifer, conifer-hardwood, maple, mixed hardwood, and oak-hickory forests. The overall accuracy was 81.9%, and the total disagreement was 0.176. The accuracies of conifer, conifer-hardwood, maple, mixed hardwood, and oak-hickory forests were 81.6, 63.4, 75.0, 33.3, and 90%, respectively. This forest mapping technique is suitable for automated mapping offorest areas where extensive plot data are available. © The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI. (DOI: 10.1117/1.JRS.8.083546)