A satellite-based map compared to a traditional vegetation map of Arctic vegetation in the Ny-Ålesund area, Svalbard

• Published in: Polar Record
• Main Author: Spjelkavik, Sigmund
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1995
• Subjects: General Earth and Planetary Sciences; Ecology; Geography, Planning and Development; Arctic; Svalbard; Ny-Ålesund; Brøggerhalvøya; Ny Ålesund; Polar Record; Spitsbergen
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0032247400013760; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0032247400013760

Abstract An area of Arctic vegetation on Brøggerhalvøya in the northwestern part of Spitsbergen, was studied. A classified Landsat-TM image with 57 land-cover classes (LCCs) was compared to an existing vegetation map with a comparison matrix. The 57 LCCs were grouped in seven different groups, where the seventh group contained 15 LCCs with vegetation. The other groups were regarded as non-vegetated. The correspondence between the existing vegetation map and the satellite-based vegetation map was not high, but the classes from the satellite-based land-cover map could be interpreted in botanical terms. A vegetation index (VI) was used to discriminate between vegetated and non-vegetated LCCs. The VI was correlated to plant biomass measurements, and the total plant biomass for Brøggerhalvøya was estimated. The estimated biomass coincided with other estimates from the same area.