Snow surface classification in the Western Svalbard Island

• Main Authors: Rosamaria Salvatori, Ruggero Casacchia, Ra Grignetti
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: snow; classification; Landsat TM; field reflectance; Arctic; Svalbard
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.141.4123; http://www.isprs.org/publications/related/ISRSE/html/papers/898.pdf

Abstract- The goal of this paper is to map different snow surfaces by making use of remote sensing images, and by field reflectance data. Several tests were performed to select the proper spectral bands to be classified, including the computation of snow indexes and PC transformations. Field data were used to support the choice of the region of interest, that were selected mainly on level areas, excluding shadowed areas and sun facing slopes. Encouraging results were obtained in the distinction among relatively young snow surfaces (recent snow), the equilibrium forms usually associated to seasonal snow, and wind blown snow. Also pack surfaces, that were covered with a layer of snow, resulted as a separate class. Major difficulty in the integrated use of field and remote data concerns the low structural stability of the snow cover. We believe that the use of satellite images including the 1000-1300 spectral range and an extended field data set may substantially improve the results of this approach.