Date of Award
8-3-2006
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Anthropology
First Advisor
Dr. Zhi-Yong Yin - Chair
Second Advisor
Dr. Paul Knapp
Third Advisor
Dr. Truman Hartshorn
Abstract
Land cover change detection in urban areas provides valuable data on loss of forest and agricultural land to residential and commercial development. Using Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (1991) and Landsat 7 ETM+ (2000) imagery of Gwinnett County, GA, change images were obtained using image differencing of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), principal components analysis (PCA), and Tasseled Cap-transformed images. Ground truthing and accuracy assessment determined that land cover change detection using the NDVI and Tasseled Cap image transformation methods performed best in the study area, while PCA performed the worst of the three methods assessed. Analyses on vegetative and vegetation changes from 1991- 2000 revealed that these methods perform well for detecting changes in vegetation and/or vegetative characteristics but do not always correspond with changes in land use. Gwinnett County lost an estimated 13,500 hectares of vegetation cover during the study period to urban sprawl, with the majority of the loss coming from forested areas.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.57709/1059169
Recommended Citation
DiGirolamo, Paul Alrik, "A Comparison of Change Detection Methods in an Urban Environment Using LANDSAT TM and ETM+ Satellite Imagery: A Multi-Temporal, Multi-Spectral Analysis of Gwinnett County, GA 1991-2000." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2006.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/1059169