For land cover change detection inrelation to climate change effects :
You can go for medium resolution satellite image.
Like LANDSAT Satellite data (30m Spatial resolution).
Still it depends on your study area coverage.
Thanks
You can go for Landsat or ASTER these data are free to download. If you have some budget for image purchase and the area you are studying is very large you can go for AWiFS or Liss 4 MX.
Best Wishes.
Landsat and/or Aster are suitable for forest cover change over 2-3 decades in both directions: deforestation and expansion. On the how to detect:
Hein van Gils & Analia Loza (2006) What drives conversion of tropical forest in Carrasco Province, Bolivia. Ambio 35: 81-85.
Hein van Gils et al. (2008) Forecasting the pattern and pace of Fagus forest expansion in Majella National Park, Italy. Applied Vegetation Science 11: 539-546.
Well, there is now a clear and precise answer to that unless you provide more information on your application. For example, if your study area is very large (how large is it?) then it is better to use a coarse resolution such as MODIS or AWiFS. Moreover, what is the important land type of your project (land cover change)? i.e., what are you going to detect? and more other criteria must be considered to have a clear decision.
Yaseen
Hi! Of course the satellite images recommended above are useful for monitoring land cover change, but if you want to study how climate change effects land cover change, you may also need spatial data on climate variables (temp., precipitation, etc.). Here's one website with past/future gridded climate data (http://www.engr.scu.edu/~emaurer/global_data/) that can be used in combination with the satellite imagery.
Hi there,
It depends on your aim.
LANDSAT give a very good results, specially if you want to go back in time (it can give images from the 80s with TM data) with 30m resolution. Like Brian said you have to combine the satellite imagery with others insitu data.
One more thing, pay attention to the radiometric calibration and atmospheric correction. These steps are the most important.
Best
Adnane
We are offering an excellent forum for this type of discussions. Why not attending ForestSat 2014? Deadline for abstracts on April 30th, visit http://forestsat2014.com
LANSAT TM and ETM images are useful for studies related to land use and land cover.
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