Land cover classification in SE Asia using near and short wave infrared bands

A land cover classification map is necessary for modelling interactions between the land surface and the atmosphere, monitoring the environment and estimating food production. In order to classify land cover in SE Asia in 2000, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), reflectance of near-infrared (NIR) band, and reflectance of short wave infrared (SWIR) band of Systeme pour l'Observation de la Terre (SPOT) VEGETATION data were used in this study. First, ground data were collected for training data. In addition, supervised classification was performed on twelve months of NDVI data. As a result, some deserts and peripheral sparse vegetative areas were classified into urban, compared with the world atlas. Secondly, the number of months when the reflectance of the SWIR band is higher than that of the NIR band was counted (SWIR>NIR month-count condition) in each pixel, and pixels with counts of 10 were classified as Sparse Herbaceous/Shrub and of 11 or 12 were classified as Bare Areas, respectively. Finally, land cover was classified based on the SWIR>NIR month-count condition combined with NDVI, and it was compared with the existing land cover map. It was found that the SWIR>NIR month-count condition gives a better result for areas of non- or sparsely vegetative classification than when using only NDVI.