Classification of forest vegetation in north-central Minnesota using Landsat Multispectral Scanner and Thematic Mapper data

Computer classifications of Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper (TM) and Multispectral Scanner (MSS) data were evaluated to determine how forest and sensor characteristics affect the classification accuracy of Minnesota forest cover types. The Landsat classification maps were compared on a pixel by pixel basis with a digitized reference map of Itasca State Park. Classification results were compared for statistically significant differences using discrete multivariate statistics. Classification accuracies ranged from 26 to 86%, depending upon the sensor, number of classes, and performance measure used. -from Authors