PE&RC seminar:
Automated Predictive Ecological Mapping in a Canadian Forest Region
By: Bob MacMillan, LandMapper Environmental Solutions Inc., Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (bobmacm@telusplanet.net)
Procedures for automated predictive thematic mapping were developed and applied to project areas totaling more than three million hectares of forested land in British Columbia, Canada. The effective scale of mapping was 1:20,000 using data at a grid resolution of 25 m. The methods can be described as a form of automated feature extraction or object recognition where the objects of interest consist of ecological site types. The methods implement a hybrid of automated, semi-automated and manual procedures that develop and apply heuristic, rule-based conceptual models of ecological-landform relationships. The procedures do not use any field sampling to develop or train classification rules. All rules are constructed by examining and deconstructing published field guides that define the required ecological output classes and that document the current expert understanding of the conditions and criteria that control the spatial distribution of these desired output classes. An iterative, trial and error, process is used to develop, apply, evaluate and revise object recognition rules. Local expert knowledge is used at each stage to evaluate each new set of output results and to guide refinement of the classification rules. Field sample observations obtained along randomly selected closed traverses are collected following a line-intercept approach and used to assess the accuracy of the final predictions of ecological classification. The independent assessments of map accuracy produced results superior to the highest accuracies reported for all alternatives, including the much more expensive traditional manual mapping methods.
The seminar first presents theory and application of the automated mapping methodology, followed by an interactive demonstration of the LandMapR software tool.
Voor meer informatie (kosten misschien)
neem contact op met dr.ir. G.B.M. (Gerard) Heuvelink
tel: 0317 - 48 24 20 of 7 46 28 (secr. 7 42 22)
Centrum Bodem