Authors : Stephane Couturier , Jean-Francois Mas , Alvaro Vega and Valdemar Tapia
Abstract: There is no record so far in the literature of a comprehensive method to assess the accuracy of detailed regional scale Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) maps in the sub-tropical belt. The elevated bio-diversity and the presence of highly fragmented classes hamper the use of sampling designs commonly employed in previous assessments of mainly temperate zones. A sampling design for assessing the accuracy of the Mexican National Forest Inventory (NFI) map at community level is presented. A pilot study was conducted on the Cuitzeo Lake watershed region covering 400,000 ha of the 2000 Landsat-derived map. Various sampling designs were tested in order to find a trade-off between operational costs, a good spatial distribution of the sample and the inclusion of all sparsely distributed classes (�rare classes�). A two-stage sampling design where the selection of primary sampling units was done under separate schemes for commonly and sparsely distributed classes, showed best characteristics. Issues regarding the assessment strategy are devised.
Stephane Couturier , Jean-Francois Mas , Alvaro Vega and Valdemar Tapia , 2007. Accuracy Assessment of Land Cover Maps in Sub-tropical Countries: A Sampling Design for the Mexican National Forest Inventory Map. . Online Journal of Earth Sciences, 1: 127-135.