An analysis of thematic mapper simulator data for urban environments

Thematic mapper simulator data collected for the Los Angeles Basin in 1980 were examined to assess their utility for urban and near-urban land-cover delimitations. Spectral data for six of the thematic mapper channels were reprojected to a UTM grid and aggregated to 30-m resolution, 120 m for the thermal band. Statistics for 21 training sites representing 8 land-cover types were obtained and examined using transformed divergence calculations for intraclass variability, optimal number of channels for classification, and best channels for classification. Four channels of data are adequate for classification with the best results obtained by selection of one channel from each of the available major portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The thermal channel data is useful for urban land-cover delineations at 30-m resolution, but its utility at 120-m resolution is not clear from this study.