ISSAQUAH, Wash., June 26, 2015 — EarthDefine, a provider of high-resolution spatial data products, has created a seamless 1 meter resolution tree cover dataset for California.
This dataset updates its previous tree map for California using the newest 2014 National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) aerial imagery. The source aerial imagery was flown between May and October 2014.
Photo – http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150624/225563
Photo – http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150624/225564
The California SpatialCover Tree Canopy dataset is derived from a 6 class land cover classification for California that maps trees, impervious surfaces, bare land, water, herbaceous cover and shrubs at over 30 times the resolution of existing state level datasets for California. EarthDefine’s Tree Canopy data allows users to accurately measure and understand tree cover at regional and local levels, especially in mixed urban and agricultural landscapes. The tree map can help planners assess urban tree canopy for any city in the state and also support other applications like biomass estimation, wildfire risk monitoring, studying interactions between public health and tree cover, quantification of ecosystem services and improved modeling of stormwater flows.
EarthDefine also provides the most accurate available data source for mapping impervious surfaces across California. This dataset improves on currently available data at 30 meter resolution that can significantly underestimate built up ground cover in less developed areas. The impervious surface data can help improve current estimates of stormwater pollutant loads and reductions.
Processing high resolution aerial imagery over large areas has not been a cost effective proposition in the past due to the large volumes of data involved and the challenges in managing source image variability arising from multiple acquisition dates. EarthDefine has addressed these big data challenges by developing a high throughput Geographic Object-Based Image Analysis (GEOBIA) platform. This platform can process multiple terabytes of geospatial data while applying sophisticated rules that can take the spectral properties and contextual information of a ground object into account while assigning its most likely land cover type. The GEOBIA platform integrates multiple data sources including the base 4 band color infrared imagery, demographic data, cadastral and transportation vectors to produce the California tree map and other land cover classes.
EarthDefine has created similar products for Indiana and will continue to grow its tree mapping database to cover more states over the next year by building on the best available orthoimagery and LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data. For more information on EarthDefine products, please visit www.earthdefine.com.
