Disturbance-Informed Annual Land Cover Classification Maps of Canada’s Forested Ecosystems for a 29-Year Landsat Time Series

摘要

Land cover classification of large geographic areas over multiple decades at an annual time step isrnnow possible based upon free and open access to the Landsat data archive. Annual gap-free, bestavailable-rnpixel, surface reflectance, image composites and annual forest change maps have been generatedrnfor Canada for the years 1984 to 2012. Using these data, we demonstrate the Virtual Land CoverrnEngine (VLCE), a framework for change-informed annual land cover mapping, over the 650million harnforested ecosystemsof Canada, to produce a 29-year data cube of land cover. Post-processing aimed tornreduce spurious class transitions is undertaken integrating change information, land cover transitionrnlikelihoods, and year-on-year class membership likelihoods. Validation was assessed for a single yearrn(2005) using independent data for an overall accuracy of 70.3% (± 2.5%). Key results are the detailedrncapture of trends in land cover, illustration of land cover links to disturbance processes, and insightsrnrelated to the general stability of land cover over time with stand replacing disturbance followed byrnregeneration of forests. The portable mapping framework and resultant data products offer an integrated,rnlong baseline, disturbance-informed and detailed depiction of land cover to meet science andrnprogram related information needs.