A Sub-meter Resolution Land Cover Map of the Barrow Biocomplexity Study Area

The importance of developing accurate, low-cost and time-efficient methods for arctic tundra monitoring is essential for spatial assessments and quantification of biogeochemical processes such as green house emissions. Coarse resolution satellite imagery (grid pixel >10m) have a limited capacity for mapping highly heterogeneous tundra ecosystems. Commercial high-spatial resolution imaging systems provide capacities for mapping arctic vegetation at fine scales. We incorporated Quickbird imagery (0.6m pan, 2.4m multispectral) and a compilation of ground-truth observations to develop a sub-meter tundra vegetation map for the Biocomplexity Experiment site (625 ha) near Barrow, Alaska. Land cover types were delineated using plant community assembalge data collected at Barrow ITEX and IPY-BTF study sites. Using a pan-sharpened, orthorectified, atmospheric and radiometrically corrected Quickbird scene, we undertook a maximum-likelihood supervised classification approach based on ground data for the seven plant communities across the study region. To assess the accuracy we used a compilation of ground-truth observations from the Barrow-Arctic Information Database (BAID) resulting in an overall accuracy of 86.72%. The classification product with a grid pixel size of 0.6m was successful in characterizing the extreme spatial heterogeneity of this tundra landscape. This study sets a new era for mapping arctic tundra at high spatial resolutions, improving significantly, the quantification and scalability of plot level measurements to the landscape scale. This map also serves as a platform from which future arctic vegetation can be assessed.