Thematic Mapping from Satellite Imagery: A Guidebook discusses methods in producing maps using satellite images. The book is comprised of five chapters; each chapter covers one stage of the process. Chapter 1 tackles the satellite remote sensing imaging and its cartographic significance. Chapter 2 discusses the production processes for extracting information from satellite data. The next chapter covers the methods for combining satellite-derived information with that obtained from conventional sources. Chapter 4 deals with design and semiology for cartographic representation, and Chapter 5 presents examples of applications. The book will be of great use to cartographers who want to utilize satellite imaging in generating a map.

Thematic maps derived from remote sensing imagery is increasingly being used in environmental and ecological modeling. Spatial information in these maps however is not free of error. Different methodologies such as error matrices are used to assess the accuracy of the spatial information. However, most of the methods commonly used for describing the accuracy assessment of thematic data fail to describe spatial differences of the accuracy across an area of interest. This thesis describes the use of indicator kriging as a geostatistical method for mapping the spatial accuracy of thematic maps. The method is illustrated by constructing accuracy maps for the forest land-cover classes in the 2001 National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD) extent covering the conterminous United States. Independent reference data collected for the accuracy assessment of the 2001 NCLD was used. This thesis also describes the use of indicator cokriging for improving the thematic accuracy of the forest land-cover classes by adding information from other land-cover classes as additional variables. Finally, probability surfaces resulted from indicator kriging and indicator cokriging will be used to generate alternate realizations of the forest land-cover class through stochastic simulation. Such realizations could serve as input parameters to spatially explicit models. Result show how thematic accuracy varies across regions and it outlines differences between land-cover estimates by NLCD and those created through indicator kriging.

Land cover assessment and monitoring of its dynamics are essential requirements for the sustainable management of natural resources, environmental protection, food security, humanitarian programmes as well as core data for monitoring and modelling. Land Cover (LC) data are therefore fundamental in fulfilling the mandates of many United Nations (UN), international and national institutions and programmes. Despite the recognition of such importance, current users of LC data still lack access to sufficient reliable or comparable baseline LC data. These data are essential to tackle the increasing concerns in regard to food security, environmental degradation, and climate change. Critically, maintaining and restoring land resources plays a vital task in tackling climate change, securing biodiversity, and maintaining crucial ecosystem services, while ensuring resilient livelihoods and food security.

Whither geographical information systems GIS? This book - the second in a series - presents GIS research at the cutting edge, deriving from presentations made to the second GIS Research UK Conference GISRUK, a transdisciplinary focus meeting supported by the Association for Geographic lnformation AGI and the UK Regional Research Laboratories Initiative, and comprising contributions - all fully reviewed for publication - from leading experts from geography computer science, land use and resources, environmental science, ecology and urban and regional planning.; The book is founded on the premise that GIS is "the province of no one discipline", and its mission is thus to foster communication, to demonstrate the commonality of problems, and to offer alternative solutions from a variety of sources. It focuses on data base issues - attributes; their location; their appropriate and rapid retrieval; spatial analysis - the statistical interrogation of spatial and aspatial attributes; decision-making - the interface between people and computational support; visualization - beyond the metaphor of the static, paper, map; and applications extending the use and usefulness of GIS.