An IKONOS satellite image library of ecosystems in the Arctic Network of national parks
Wells AF and Macander MJ. 2010. An IKONOS satellite image library of ecosystems in the Arctic Network of national parks. Natural Resource Technical Report. NPS/ARCN/NRTR—2010/397. National Park Service, Natural Resource Program Center. Fort Collins, Colorado
The National Park Service’s ArcticNetwork (ARCN) seeks to understandthe natural resources and to detectchanges and trends in those resourcesin five NPS units, including Gates of theArctic National Park and Preserve,Kobuk Valley National Park, NoatakNational Preserve, Cape KrusensternNational Monument, and Bering LandBridge National Preserve (Figure 1).This network is one of 32 networksof the NPS Inventory & MonitoringProgram and it encompasses nearlyone-fourth of the NPS-administeredlands in the United States. The networkparks are almost completely roadlessand, for the most part, distant fromany airports. As a result much of themonitoring work will be accomplishedby remote sensing. The purpose of thisproject is to capture and systematizethe calibration data that was acquiredto produce the ecological land surveyand unified ecological unit map of theArctic Network (Jorgenson et al. 2009).As a part of this work, numerousground plots were sampled (primarilyby helicopter access). These groundbaseddata were analyzed visually overIKONOS satellite imagery for theirpotential use as reference areas (i.e.training polygons) in a supervisedclassification of Landsat imagery.These reference areas provide typicalexamples of a wide range of vegetationand land cover types in the network. Inthis report, the reference areas, andassociated IKONOS imagery, have beenorganized into a comprehensive imagelibrary for use in future image interpretation.The image library provides aguide to the visual characteristics anddescriptions of diagnostic spectralfeatures of the common ecologicaltypes of ARCN based on pansharpened(1-m resolution) colorinfrared imagery. The image library isdesigned to work seamlessly with themaps and GIS data, written report, andraw field data provided by Jorgenson etal. (2009). The reference images anddescriptions should greatly enhancethe ability of the end user to interpretIKONOS and other similar imageryand capture valuable information thatwould otherwise be very difficult toobtain.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Wells, Aaron; Macander, Matthew
- Date of Issue
- 2010-11
- Publisher
- National Park Service, Natural Resource Program Center
- Units
- ARCN , NRSS