Land Cover Classification

A land cover classification of the settled areas of South Australia was generated by Image Data as part of the Bureau of Resource Sciences ‘Agricultural Land Cover Change’ project.

Landsat TM imagery was georectified and an unsupervised classification used to classify the imagery. Aerial photography and field inspection was used to attribute the classification.

Each image was classified into seven distinct land cover classes.

Class Name Examples:

1. Pasture: Dryland pasture, Irrigated pasture, chenopods, samphire, herbfields
2. Urban: Towns, Cities
3. Bare: Roads, Exposed sand and rock, Quarries
4. Water: Fresh water, Saline Water, Seawater
5. Plantation: Native species woodlots, Other timber trees, Pine
6. Orchard: Citrus, Nut trees, Stonefruit, Vineyards
7. Woody vegetation: Native trees/mallee/tall shrubs, Non-native trees, >2m height, >20% canopy cover

The pasture class represented all vegetation except orchard vegetation (class 6) below 2m in height and less than 20% canopy cover. Figures 1a and 1b show areas indicative of classes 1 and 7 respectively.

Click on the images for a more detailed view.
Figure 1a: Class 1 (Pasture) (Photo: J. Cameron, 1998)	Figure 1b: Class 7 (Native) in South Australia (Photo: J. Cameron, 1998)

The colours representing the above classes for the classification sample provided are as follows:

• White: Bare ground
• Cream: Pasture (vegetation <2m height)
• Blue: Water
• Light Green: Native vegetation
• Dark Green: Plantation
• Purple: Orchards/vineyards
• Red: Urban