Application of Simulated Radarsat Sar Data in Land Use/Land Cover Mapping in Cameron Highlands, Malaysia
Materials and Methodology
Simulated Radarsat Data
Globe SAR data of two polarizations acquired on November 8, 1993 by the Canadian center for Remote sensing (CCRS) using convair -580 equipped with C-band synthetic aperture radar sensor system. The strip of the SAR data, covering a portion of Cameron highland district of 4096 pixels by 22311 lines by 16 bits per pixel size. The images have pixels size of approximately 25m by 28m on the ground.
The original SAR data of the area acquired were sent to back to Canada and processed at CCRS in Ottawa for higher quality products. The processing commented were antenna pattern correction, slant range to ground range correction, slant range to ground range correction, 3 by 3 Lee filtering, and enhancement. The produced was simulated radarsat SAR data of 1 bites per, pixel, multi file format (MFF). Single band, 1734 pixel by 7678 lines samples , and standard simulation mode.
The simulated radarsat SAR data was registered to geocoded Landsat TM for further processing, Appendix 2. Firstly, the SAR imagery was enhanced and printed hardcopy for visual interpretation.
Landsat Thematic Mapper
Landsat TM data of path 127 row 57 acquired on 26th February 1993 available at the Departent of Agriculture, Peninsular Malaysia was used in this project. The geo-coding to RSO coordinate of the scene was done the Malaysia center of Remoter sensing ( MACRES). Subsequently, one visible ( band 3) and two infra -red band ( band 4 and band 5) of which sensitive to plant species, vegetation biomass and amount of water in plants were used. The three bands (RGB) were transformed into intensity, hue, and saturation (HIS) and following that intensity was replaced with radar imagery. Finally, the radar band, hue, and saturation were converted to RGB for the purposed of hard copy printing for knowledge based visual interpretation, Appendix 2.
Land Use /land cover Vector Data 1990.
Land use/land cover map of Cameron Highlands of scale 1:50,000 was used as a reference in this study. The map was complied by the Department of Agriculture based on aerial photography interpretation of scale 1:40,000 of 1980. subsequently, the map was updated based on visual interpretation of Landsat TM 1990. the map was digitized by using software ARC/INFO.
Topography Base Map
Topography based map of 1:50,000 scale prepared the department of survey and mapping Malaysia was used to rectified the Landsat TM imagery to RSO co-ordinate. Consequently, the SAR imagery was geocoded to Landsat TM imagery ( image to image).
Field survey data
The first field trip was done on November 12, 1993, after three days Globe SAR data acquistion ( November 8, 1993), to collect ground data such as land use type, soil color, soil moisture, rainfall ( station I second field trip, after the remote sensing data processing, was carried out on 19th of August, for the purpose of verifying visual interpretation of the hard copy of simulated Radarsat SAR and a combination of Radarsat SAR & Landsat TM image map printed of scale 1:50,000.
