Estimating impervious surfaces from medium spatial resolution imagery: a comparison between fuzzy classification and LSMA

Impervious surfaces are important environmental indicators and are related to many environmental issues, such as water quality, stream health and the urban heat island effect. Therefore, detailed impervious surface information is crucial for urban planning and environment management. To extract impervious surfaces from remote sensing imagery, many algorithms and techniques have been developed. However, there are still debates over the strengths and limitations of linear versus nonlinear algorithms in handling mixed pixels in the urban landscapes. In the meantime, although many previous studies have compared various techniques, few comparisons were made between linear and nonlinear techniques. The objective of this study is to compare the performance between nonlinear and linear methods for impervious surface extraction from medium spatial resolution imagery. A linear spectral mixture analysis (LSMA) and a fuzzy classifier were applied to three Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) images acquired on 5 April 2004, 16 June 2001 and 3 October 2000, which covered Marion County, Indiana, United States. An aerial photo of Marion County with a spatial resolution of 0.14 m was used for validation of estimation results. Six impervious surface maps were yielded, and an accuracy assessment was performed. The root mean square error (RMSE), the mean average error (MAE), and the coefficient of determination (R ²) were calculated to indicate the accuracy of impervious surface maps. The results show that the fuzzy classification outperformed LSMA in impervious surface estimation in all seasons. For the June image, LSMA yielded a result with an RMSE of 13.2%, while the fuzzy classifier yielded an RMSE of 12.4%. For the April image, LSMA yielded an accuracy of 21.1% and the fuzzy classifier yielded 17.0%. For the October image, LSMA yielded a result with an RMSE of 19.8%, but the fuzzy classifier yielded an RMSE of 17.5%. Moreover, a subset image of the commercial, high-density and low-density residential areas was selected in order to compare the effectiveness of the developed algorithms for estimating impervious surfaces of different land use types. The result shows that the fuzzy classification was more effective than LSMA in both high-density and low-density residential areas. These areas prevailed with mixed pixels in the medium resolution imagery, such as ASTER. The results from the tested commercial area had a very high RMSE value due to the prevalence of shade in the area. It is suggested that the fuzzy classifier based on the nonlinear assumption can handle mixed pixels more effectively than LSMA.     

Estimating impervious surface distribution by spectral mixture analysis

Estimating the distribution of impervious surface, a major component of the vegetation-impervious surface-soil (V-I-S) model, is important in monitoring urban areas and understanding human activities. Besides its applications in physical geography, such as run-off models and urban change studies, maps showing impervious surface distribution are essential for estimating socio-economic factors, such as population density and social conditions. In this paper, impervious surface distribution, together with vegetation and soil cover, is estimated through a fully constrained linear spectral mixture model using Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) data within the metropolitan area of Columbus, OH in the United States. Four endmembers, low albedo, high albedo, vegetation, and soil were selected to model heterogeneous urban land cover. Impervious surface fraction was estimated by analyzing low and high albedo endmembers. The estimation accuracy for impervious surface was assessed using Digital Orthophoto Quarterquadrangle (DOQQ) images. The overall root mean square (RMS) error was 10.6%, which is comparable to the digitizing errors of DOQQ images. Results indicate that impervious surface distribution can be derived from remotely sensed imagery with promising accuracy.     

基于多端元混合光谱模型与Landsat影像的北京不透水层动态研究

中国正在经历快速地城市化过程,及时又准确地掌握城市化过程对我国社会经济发展具有重要的实际意义。以Landsat-TM和ETM+为主要数据源,通过多端元光谱混合分析法(MESMA)提取北京建成区不透水层的时空演变信息。在Ridd的V-I-S(植被—不透水层—土壤)概念模型框架下,基于最小噪音变换(MNF)将TM或ETM+的6个光谱波段转换成MNF空间,并定义4种端元光谱分别代表植被、高反射率地表、低反射率地表和土壤,同时构建北京建成区端元光谱数据库。然后在MATLAB软件包中实现MESMA模型程序,依次提取北京市6个时段的不透水层信息。研究结果表明:MESMA方法能够提高植被、土壤和不透水层提取精度,相对误差分别为14.6%、17.3%和11.9%。研究结论充分说明MESMA方法应用到一个时间序列的中分辨率多光谱遥感影像是非常有效的。MESMA光谱分解方法能高效实现北京城市动态变化和城市扩张的监测。     

福州城区不透水面的光谱混合分析与识别制图

作为Ridd V-I-S模型中的一个重要组成部分,城市不透水面在监测城市扩展和解释人类活动对生态环境的影响起着非常重要的作用。利用图像处理技术,可以迅速地从遥感图像中提取城市不透水面信息。本文以福州城区为例,利用最小噪音分量变换法研究Landsat ETM 影像中城市不透水面信息的提取。通过选取最小噪音分量变换后的前3个分量和线性光谱混合模型,测算得到了高反照率、低反照率、植被及土壤4个模拟城市不同土地覆盖类型的终端地类分量。通过综合低反照率和高反照率两个终端地类,最后得到了不透水面分量。结果表明,城市不透水面的增加对城市生态环境有负面影响。     

Estimating impervious surfaces using linear spectral mixture analysis with multitemporal ASTER images

Impervious surface is a key indicator of urban environmental quality and degree of urbanization. Therefore, estimation and mapping of impervious surfaces by using remote sensing digital images has attracted increasing attention recently. For mid-latitude cities, seasonal vegetation phenology has a significant effect on the spectral response of terrestrial features, and image analysis must take into account this environmental characteristic. In this paper, three Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) images, acquired on 3 October 2000, 16 June 2001 and 5 April 2004, respectively, were used to test the seasonal sensitivity of impervious surface estimation. The study area was the city of Indianapolis (Marion County), Indiana, USA. Linear spectral mixture analysis (LSMA) was applied to generate high-albedo, low-albedo, vegetation and soil fraction images (endmembers), and impervious surfaces were then estimated by adding high- and low-albedo fraction images. In addition, land use/land cover (LULC) and land surface temperature (LST) maps were generated and used to create image masks to remove non-impervious pixels. The accuracy of the impervious surface maps was checked against Digital Orthophoto Quarter Quadrangle (DOQQ) images. Three accuracy indicators, the root mean square error (RMSE), mean average error (MAE) and correlation coefficient (R ²), were calculated and compared to analyse the seasonal sensitivity of impervious surface estimation. Our results indicate that vegetation phenology has a fundamental impact on impervious surface estimation. The summer (June) image was better for impervious surface estimation than the spring (April) and autumn (October) images. The LULC and LST image masks can significantly increase the accuracy of impervious surface estimation. The mean LST was found appropriate to be set as the threshold for the various image masks. A summer image was most appropriate because there was full growth of vegetation, and mapping of impervious surfaces was more effective with a contrasting spectral response from green vegetation. The mixing space, based on the four endmembers, was perfectly three-dimensional. By contrast, there was significant amount of bare soil and ground and non-photosynthetic vegetation in the spring and autumn images. Plant phenology caused changes in the variance partitioning and impacted the mixing space characterization, leading to a less accurate estimation of the impervious surfaces.     

The effects of endmember selection on modelling impervious surfaces using spectral mixture analysis: a case study in Sydney,Australia

In urban areas, spectral mixture analysis (SMA) is a common technique for deriving the fractions of land covers within a pixel and information on the distribution of impervious surfaces. This study examined how the selection of endmembers affected the quantification of impervious surfaces using TM and ASTER imagery. Multiple subsets of endmembers derived using (1) extreme pixels from a minimum noise fraction (MNF) transformation, and (2) a manual approach using a priori knowledge of the study area were analysed. Two data sets were used to assess accuracy: (1) simulated image data comprising unmixed and mixed pixels of 10 typical and spectrally different urban land covers, and (2) detailed data derived from high-resolution aerial photography. The dimensionality of the imagery limited the number of endmembers, and as a result, unmixed land covers were modelled using multiple endmembers and some cells had abundance values that summed to more than one or were negative. The land covers of red roofs and concrete were the largest contributors to the error in impervious surfaces. The Sequential Maximum Angle Convex Cone (SMACC) endmember model was also used to unmix the images; however, the larger number of endmembers did not resolve the use of multiple endmembers to model the unmixed land covers and the accuracy was similar to that using SMA. The relationship between the pervious fraction estimated using the vegetation endmember and the ground reference data was stronger than that for the impervious fraction, although the fraction was underestimated. The problems in modelling highly variable impervious surfaces with a limited number of endmembers suggest that in urban environments with substantial vegetation, modelling the vegetation component as the inverse of the impervious fraction may lead to improved results.     

Quantifying high‐resolution impervious surfaces using spectral mixture analysis

Impervious surface distribution and its temporal changes are considered key urbanization indicators and are utilized for analysing urban growth and influences of urbanization on natural environments. Recently, urban impervious surface information was extracted from medium/coarse resolution remote sensing imagery (e.g. Landsat ETM+ and AVHRR) through spectral analytical methods (e.g. spectral mixture analysis (SMA), regression tree, etc.). Few studies, however, have attempted to generate impervious surface information from high resolution remotely sensed imagery (e.g. IKONOS and Quickbird). High resolution images provide detailed information about urban features and are, therefore, more valuable for urban analysis. The improved spatial resolution, however, also brings new challenges when existing spectral analytical methods are applied. In particular, a higher spatial resolution leads to reduced boundary effects and increased within‐class variability. Taking Grafton, Wisconsin, USA as a study site, this paper analyses the spectral characteristics of IKONOS imagery and explores the applicability of SMA for impervious surface estimation. Results suggest that with improved spatial resolution, IKONOS imagery contains 40–50% of mixed urban pixels for the study area, and the within‐class variability is a severe problem for spectral analysis. To address this problem, this paper proposes two approaches, interior end‐member set selection and spectral normalization, for SMA. Analysis of results indicates that these approaches can reasonably reduce the problems associated with boundary effects and within‐class variability, therefore generating better impervious surface estimates.     

Estimating impervious surfaces from medium spatial resolution imagery using the self-organizing map and multi-layer perceptron neural networks

The studies of impervious surfaces are important because they are related to many environmental problems, such as water quality, stream health, and the urban heat island effect. Previous studies have discussed that the self-organizing map (SOM) can provide a promising alternative to the multi-layer perceptron (MLP) neural networks for image classification at both per-pixel and sub-pixel level. However, the performances of SOM and MLP have not been compared in the estimation and mapping of urban impervious surfaces. In mid-latitude areas, plant phenology has a significant influence on remote sensing of the environment. When the neural networks approaches are applied, how satellite images acquired in different seasons impact impervious surface estimation of various urban surfaces (such as commercial, residential, and suburban/rural areas) remains to be answered. In this paper, an SOM and an MLP neural network were applied to three ASTER images acquired on April 5, 2004, June 16, 2001, and October 3, 2000, respectively, which covered Marion County, Indiana, United States. Six impervious surface maps were yielded, and an accuracy assessment was performed. The root mean square error (RMSE), the mean average error (MAE), and the coefficient of determination (R²) were calculated to indicate the accuracy of impervious surface maps. The results indicated that the SOM can generate a slightly better estimation of impervious surfaces than the MLP. Moreover, the results from three test areas showed that, in the residential areas, more accurate results were yielded by the SOM, which indicates that the SOM was more effective in coping with the mixed pixels than the MLP, because the residential area prevailed with mixed pixels. Results obtained from the commercial area possessed very high RMSE values due to the prevalence of shade, which indicates that both algorithms cannot handle the shade problem well. The lowest RMSE value was obtained from the rural area due to containing of less mixed pixels and shade. This research supports previous observations that the SOM can provide a promising alternative to the MLP neural network. This study also found that the impact of different map sizes on the impervious surface estimation is significant.     

A comparison of two spectral mixture modelling approaches for impervious surface mapping in urban areas

Urban change processes that have been occurring over the past decades are affecting the human and natural environment in many ways, and have stressed the need for new, more effective urban management approaches. In this context, mapping man-made impervious surfaces has been the focus of attention as impervious surfaces can be used as a general indicator to quantify urban change and its environmental impact. Despite the currently available digital imagery from high-resolution satellite sensors such as Ikonos and Quickbird, or from airborne cameras, spectral unmixing approaches applied on medium-resolution data from sensors such as Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM)/Enhanced TM Plus (ETM+) or Syst?me Probatoire d' Observation de la Terre-Haute Résolution Visible (SPOT-HRV) offer interesting perspectives to map impervious surfaces for large spatial extents. Several techniques for subpixel impervious surface mapping have been examined previously but there is a lack of comparative analysis. Our objective was to compare two spectral mixture analysis (SMA) models: the linear spectral unmixing model and the multilayer perceptron (MLP) model. Both models were implemented in a multiresolution framework, where reference data for model training were obtained from a high-resolution land-cover classification (derived from Ikonos imagery), while the models themselves were applied on medium-resolution data (Landsat ETM+). As a secondary objective, the effect of spectral normalization on the performance of both models was assessed. The MLP model clearly performed better than the linear mixture model. The average absolute error of the impervious surface proportion estimate within each medium-resolution pixel was 10.4% for the MLP model versus 12.9% for the linear mixture model. Spectral normalization was used to improve the results obtained by the linear mixture model, with the mean absolute error (MAE) for impervious surfaces decreasing from 14.8% to 12.9% after normalization. Its effects on the MLP model appeared to be insignificant. The outcome of this study can help to provide guidance for the selection of an approach to estimate continuous impervious surface fractions from medium-resolution data.     

Synergistic use of optical and InSAR data for urban impervious surface mapping: a case study in Hong Kong

A wide range of urban ecosystem studies, including urban hydrology, urban climate, land use planning and watershed resource management, require accurate and up‐to‐date geospatial data of urban impervious surfaces. In this study, the potential of the synergistic use of optical and InSAR data in urban impervious surface mapping at the sub‐pixel level was investigated. A case study in Hong Kong was conducted for this purpose by applying a classification and regression tree (CART) algorithm to SPOT 5 multispectral imagery and ERS‐2 SAR data. Validated by reference data derived from high‐resolution colour‐infrared (CIR) aerial photographs, our results show that the addition of InSAR feature information can improve the estimation of impervious surface percentage (ISP) in comparison with using SPOT imagery alone. The improvement is especially notable in separating urban impervious surface from the vacant land/bare ground, which has been a difficult task in ISP modelling with optical remote sensing data. In addition, the results demonstrate the potential to map urban impervious surface by using InSAR data alone. This allows frequent monitoring of world's cities located in cloud‐prone and rainy areas.     

Phenology-based temporal mixture analysis for estimating large-scale impervious surface distributions

Along with rapid urbanization, the prevalence of urban impervious surfaces, a major biophysical component of urbanized areas, has increased concurrently. As a key indicator of environmental quality and urbanization intensity, the accurate estimation of impervious surfaces is essential. To address this problem, numerous automated estimation approaches have been developed in the past several decades. Among these approaches, spectral mixture analysis (SMA) is an especially powerful and widely used technique. Although SMA has proved valuable in impervious surface estimation, the issues of seasonal sensitivity and spectral confusion have not been successfully addressed. In particular, impervious surface estimation is likely to be sensitive to seasonal variations, largely due to the shadowing effects of vegetation canopy during summer and confusion between impervious surfaces and soil during winter. In this study, we developed two temporal mixture analysis methods: phenology-based temporal mixture analysis (PTMA) and phenology-based multi-endmember temporal mixture analysis (PMETMA), to quantify impervious surface areal fractions using multi-temporal MODIS NDVI data. Specifically, 1 year-continuous MODIS NDVI series were employed to address seasonal sensitivity and spectral confusion issues. Furthermore, the estimated results were compared to TMAs that applied only to summer and winter data. The results indicate that both PTMA and PMETMA perform well for estimating the percentage of impervious surface areas. Moreover, a comparative analysis indicates that PMETMA performs slightly better than PTMA root mean square error (RMSE) of 7.27%, SE of 3.25%, and MAE of 4.03%) and much better than summer TMA and winter TMA, with a RMSE of 7.54%, an SE of 2.13%, an MAE of 3.36%, and an R² of 0.7623.     

Extraction of urban impervious surfaces from an IKONOS image

Impervious surface has been recognised as an important indicator in urban environmental assessment. However, accurate extraction of impervious surface information in urban areas is a challenge because of the complexity of impervious materials. This paper explores different approaches for impervious surface extraction with IKONOS imagery in Indianapolis, U.S.A., by using decision tree classifier (DTC) and linear spectral mixture analysis (LSMA). This research indicates that DTC is an effective approach for extraction of different impervious surface classes, including high‐, medium‐ and low‐reflectivity impervious surfaces and that LSMA‐based approach can provide quantitative measure of imperviousness. A critical step is to separate dark impervious objects/features from shadows cast by tall buildings and tree canopy and from water.     

Spectral mixture analysis for mapping abundance of urban surface components from the Terra/ASTER data

Using a linear unconstrained least squares (LSS) method and a non-linear artificial neural network (ANN) algorithm, we conducted a spectral mixture analysis to the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflectance Radiometer (ASTER) image data in Yokohama city, Japan, for mapping the abundance of the urban surface components. ASTER is a newly developed research facility instrument. The regions of interest of four endmembers (Vegetation, Soil, High/Low albedo impervious surfaces) were determined in Maximum Noise Fraction (MNF) feature spaces. The spectral signatures of the four endmembers were then extracted from the ASTER VNIR (15-m resolution) and SWIR (30-m resolution) imagery by referring to high spatial resolution airborne imagery (The Airborne Imaging Spectrometer, AISA, with 2-m resolution) and land use/land cover map for training and testing the LSS and ANN algorithms. Experimental results indicate that ASTER VNIR and SWIR image data are capable of mapping the abundances of urban surface components with a reasonable accuracy and that the ANN outperforms the unconstrained LSS in this spectral mixture analysis.     

Impervious surface mapping with Quickbird imagery

This research selects two study areas with different urban developments, sizes, and spatial patterns to explore the suitable methods for mapping impervious surface distribution using Quickbird imagery. The selected methods include per-pixel based supervised classification, segmentation-based classification, and a hybrid method. A comparative analysis of the results indicates that per-pixel based supervised classification produces a large number of "salt-and-pepper" pixels, and segmentation based methods can significantly reduce this problem. However, neither method can effectively solve the spectral confusion of impervious surfaces with water/wetland and bare soils and the impacts of shadows. In order to accurately map impervious surface distribution from Quickbird images, manual editing is necessary and may be the only way to extract impervious surfaces from the confused land covers and the shadow problem. This research indicates that the hybrid method consisting of thresholding techniques, unsupervised classification and limited manual editing provides the best performance.     

Impervious surface mapping with Quickbird imagery

This research selects two study areas with different urban developments, sizes and spatial patterns to explore suitable methods for mapping impervious surface distribution using Quickbird imagery. The selected methods include per-pixel based supervised classification, segmentation-based classification and a hybrid method. A comparative analysis of the results indicates that per-pixel based supervised classification produces a large number of ‘salt-and-pepper’ pixels, and segmentation-based methods can significantly reduce this problem. However, neither method can effectively solve the spectral confusion of impervious surfaces with water/wetland and bare soils and the impacts of shadows. To accurately map impervious surface distribution from Quickbird images, manual editing is necessary and may be the only way to extract impervious surfaces from the confused land covers and the shadow problem. This research indicates that the hybrid method consisting of thresholding techniques, unsupervised classification and limited manual editing provides the best performance.     

Examining the effectiveness of weighted spectral mixture analysis (WSMA) in urban environments

Spectral mixture analysis (SMA) has been widely applied for estimating fractional land-cover types from remote sensing pixels. SMA typically assumes each spectral band has equal contribution to the unmixing results, which has attracted debates on whether a different weight should be given to each band. Subsequently, a number of weighted SMA (WSMA) approaches have been developed and applied to different research fields. The necessity and applicability of WSMA, however, have not been adequately addressed, especially when applied to urban environments. This paper, therefore, aims to answer two research questions, including 1) whether significantly different results would be generated through applying a WSMA, and 2) which WSMA approach performs better in an urban environment. Specifically, five existing schemes: Shannon Entropy-weighted method (Entropy), reflected energy fixed-weighted vector (REFWV), InStability Index-based weighting method (ISIb), combined weighting vector (WV), and within-class variance (V_W), and five potential schemes: between-class variance (V_B), total-class variance (V_T), inversed Optimum Index Factor (IOIF), mean (Mean), and standard deviation (SD), were employed to construct WSMAs. We tested each weighting scheme 100 times with different endmember classes’ spectra. Performance of each WSMA was evaluated using the mean absolute error (MAE). Paired-samples t-test was applied to indicate if there is a significant difference between the mean of MAEs. Results illustrated that only REFWV, ISIb, and WV in All samples (samples included vegetation, high albedo impervious surface area, and low albedo impervious surface area) outperformed the unweighted scheme significantly. Other weighting schemes, such as IOIF, V_B, V_T, and SD illustrated unstable performance in different study areas. The rest of weighting schemes weakened the performance compared to the unweighted scheme. We concluded that REFWV, ISIb, and WV in All samples can be applied in analysing urban environments with three-endmember (vegetation – high albedo impervious surface area – low albedo impervious surface area) model to improve the performance of SMA. The construction of future weighting schemes would be better to consider the class variance.     

Validating a new algorithm for estimating aerosol optical depths over land from MODIS imagery

Aerosols greatly affect the signals of satellite sensor imagery for remote sensing of land surfaces and play a dual role in global climate change and the hydrological cycle. However, there has not been a reliable method for estimating aerosol properties over land directly from multispectral remotely sensed imagery. In a recent study, a new algorithm to estimate aerosol optical depths (AODs) from Moderate‐Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) imagery suitable for all land surfaces was proposed. It is based on a sequence of imagery over a period of time with the assumption that the surface property is relatively stable and atmospheric conditions vary much more dramatically. Although this algorithm was validated over several sites, more validation was necessary. In this study, this algorithm was validated using 3‐month measurements at 25 AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) sites in North America. The validation results show that this algorithm can estimate AODs with close agreement with the AERONET measurements [R ² = 0.69, root mean square error (RMSE) 0.06].     

基于混合光谱分解的兰州城市热岛与下垫面空间关系分析

利用Landsat ETM+数据,采用混合像元线性光谱分解方法提取的城市植被覆盖度与不透水面表征城市下垫面,通过单窗算法反演地表真实温度,对兰州市中心城区的夏季城市热岛强度与城市下垫面的空间分布关系进行相关分析。结果显示,利用中等分辨率ETM+影像对兰州中心城区不透水面和植被盖度分布提取,其成本较低,精度令人满意;兰州城区植被覆盖、不透水面与热岛强度的分布呈空间正自相关,地表温度的空间依赖性极强,与植被盖度和不透水面在空间方向上的相关性差异较大。     

Using low‐spectral‐resolution images to acquire simulated hyperspectral images

We propose a method to acquire simulated hyperspectral images using low‐spectral‐resolution images. Hyperspectral images provide more spectral information than low‐spectral‐resolution images, because of the additional spectral bands used for data acquisition in hyperspectral imaging. Unfortunately, original hyperspectral images are more expensive and more difficult to acquire. However, some research questions require an abundance of spectral information for ground monitoring, which original hyperspectral images can easily provide. Hence, we need to propose a method to acquire simulated hyperspectral images, when original hyperspectral images are especially necessary. Since low‐spectral‐resolution images are readily available and cheaper, we develop a method to acquire simulated hyperspectral images using low‐spectral‐resolution images. With simulated hyperspectral images, we can acquire more ‘hidden’ information from low‐spectral‐resolution images. Our method uses the principles of pixel‐mixing to understand the compositional relationship of spectrum data to an image pixel, and to simulate radiation transmission processes. To this end, we use previously obtained data (i.e. spectrum library) and the sorting data of objects that are derived from a low‐spectral‐resolution image. Using the simulation of radiation transmission processes and these different data, we acquire simulated hyperspectral images. In addition, previous analyses of simulated remotely sensed images do not use quantitative statistical measures, but use qualitative methods, describing simulated images by sight. Here, we quantitatively assess our simulation by comparing the correlation coefficients of simulated images and real images. Finally, we use simulated hyperspectral images, real Hyperion images, and their corresponding ALI images to generate several classification images. The classification results demonstrate that simulated hyperspectral data contain additional information not available in the multispectral data. We find that our method can acquire simulated hyperspectral images quickly.     

Discrimination of sedimentary lithologies using Hyperion and Landsat Thematic Mapper data: a case study at Melville Island,Canadian High Arctic

The use of remote-sensing techniques in the discrimination of rock and soil classes in northern regions can support a diverse range of activities, such as environmental characterization, mineral exploration and the study of Quaternary paleoenvironments. Although images with low spectral resolution can commonly be used in the mapping of classes possessing distinct spectral properties, hyperspectral images offer greater potential for discrimination of materials characterized by more subtle reflectance properties. In an effort to better constrain the utility of broadband and hyperspectral datasets in high-latitude research, this study investigated the effectiveness of Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and EO-1 Hyperion data for discrimination of lithological classes at eastern Melville Island, Nunavut, Canada. TM data were classified using a standard neural-network algorithm, and both TM and Hyperion data were linearly unmixed using ground-truth spectra. TM classification results successfully discriminate between classes over much of the study area, although with incomplete separation between clastic and carbonate materials. TM unmixing results are poor, with useful class separation restricted to vegetation and red-weathered sandstone classes. Hyperion results effectively depict the fractional cover of end members, although the abundance images of several classes contain background abundance values that overestimate surface exposure in some areas. For the study area and surface classes involved, noisy hyperspectral data were found to be of greater utility than higher-fidelity broadband multispectral data in the generation of fractional abundance images for an inclusive set of surface-cover classes.