Thematic Information Extraction and

Pattern Recognition:
The application to land use land cover

By Dr. Nurul Hazrina Idris

Student Learning Outcomes
Students will:
• Be able to identify some major land cover types in a land from
remote sensing image
• Realize that land cover / land use in our country is changing in
significant ways, and that this has implications for management of
the natural resources we depend on
Recap
Land cover refers to the type of material present on the landscape (e.g.,
water, sand, crops, forest, wetland, human-made materials such as
asphalt).
Land use refers to what people do on the land surface (e.g.,
agriculture, commerce, settlement).

Land cover indicates the physical land type such as forest or open
water whereas land use documents how people are using the
land
Activity 1: Understanding land cover (5min)

1) Work in 5-6 students in a group.

2) Browse to
http://padlet.com/nurulhazrina/activity1

3) Refer to the reading materials provided prior to

the class, list the main points on the reading
materials.
By comparing land cover data and maps over a period of time,
coastal managers can document land use trends and changes.
Which would you choose to detect land cover
change over time, true color or false color?

False color True color

RGB band 7,4,2 RGB band 3,2,1
Creating false color composite
The growth of an urban area: a movie
Activity 2: Class discussion (3 min)

What experiences, if any, have you had of changes

in the landscapes where you live? For example,
has there been any major construction, such as new
housing developments, shopping malls, highways,
or bridges? Or, in contrast, are any large areas
being allowed to revert to natural land cover?
 
Getting to know your satellite imagery
• Image tone, grey level, or multispectral grey-level vector.
• Image texture-Spatial variation of image tones.
• Pattern-Regular arrangement of ground objects.
• Association-A specific object co-occurring with another object.
• Shadow-Object shadow is very useful when the phenomena under
study have vertical variation. Examples include trees, high
buildings, mountains, etc.
• Shape/size/site-Agricultural fields and human-built structures have
regular shapes.
Mountains. The shadows cast by mountains can often help you to
visually identify mountain features in Landsat images.
 Non-vegetated or lightly
vegetated terrain

Up close, the area in the black

square above looks like the this.
This is some sort of shrub/brush
with lots of bare ground between
plants. This image is from Digital
Globe’s
QuickBird satellite.
Agricultural Fields. The bright green areas are vegetated fields and the
pink areas are unplanted fields. In Landsat images, agricultural fields can
often be recognized by their rectilinear appearance.
 Urban, densely
developed terrain.

Up close. It shows a densely built

neighbourhood with a park at its
center.
This image is from Digital Globe’s
QuickBird satellite.
Densely populated residential urban area with three golf courses. Phoenix
is known for its many golf courses. The bright green of the fairways,
teeing grounds, and putting greens help you identify golf courses on
Landsat images.
Landsat Quickbird

This is an example of a golf course under development.

Mixed use urban area, densely situated buildings.
Activity 3: Visually explore and become familiar with
Landsat image (3 min)
• Students work in pair.
• Each pair is provided with Landsat satellite.
• List any identifiable features and land cover types. Point
out that features with straight lines, rectangles, and perfect
circles are usually made by people.
1980 2015
Can you identify
• Water
• Urban
• Suburban
• Highways/roads
• Forest
• Vegetation
• Golf club
Sharing session
(4 min)
 Golf club
Urban area

water

1980
warehouse

highway

suburban

vegetation water

Urban area

Airport highway

1980 2015
 water
water warehouse

highway
vegetation Airport
Urban area

Urban area
suburban

Golf club

highway

1980 2015
 Pervious and impervious surface

Allow water to percolates through

the ground, reaching and
replenishing our ground water
supply
Activity 4: Peer discussion (3 min)
• Students work in pair.
• Determine five or six specific land cover types to be seen
in the satellite image, and they make a class list.
• Determine which class is pervious and impervious to
water.
• Sharing : Browse to
http://padlet.com/nurulhazrina/Activity4
 water
water warehouse

highway
vegetation Airport
Urban area

Urban area
suburban

Golf club

highway

1980 2015
Sharing session
(3 min)
Land cover types
Water pervious
Agriculture pervious
Forest pervious
Urban impervious
Residential impervious
Commercial Impervious
Grassland pervious
Activity 5: Peer discussion (3min)
• Students work in pair.
• Visually compare the Landsat images and write about
differences (change over time).

• Share your outputs are

http://padlet.com/nurulhazrina/activity5
Sharing session
(2 min)
Comparison
• Urban areas growth
• Airport size becomes larger
• Residential areas expand
• Industrial areas exist.
• Golf club exist.
• Vegetation land shrink.
Chernobyl nuclear power plant

1970 1975 2015

• Construction of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant began in the
early 1970s with Units 1 and 2.
• In the 1975 image (left), you can see some early construction as
well as the early development of the cooling pond. The pond is
clearly seen in the subsequent images.
• On 26 April 1986, the Unit 4 reactor was destroyed in a major
nuclear accident. The 1986 image (centre) was acquired three days
later.
• The agricultural fields that are present in both the 1975 and 1986
images were abandoned and left untended as the surrounding
region was evacuated. By 2011 (right), all of the units have been
shut down (the last in 1999). In this springtime image, the evidence
of previous cultivation can still be seen, but the fields have largely
reverted to grassland
Reflection
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