The wetland conservation atlas of the St. Lawrence valley produced from decision tree classifications of RADARSAT and Landsat images

The Canadian Wildlife Service, Quebec region, has initiated a project oriented toward the production of a wetland atlas covering agricultural landscapes of the St. Lawrence Valley, Quebec. A classification method that integrates a series of RADARSAT ortho-images, Landsat Thematic Mapper-5 decorrelated images and digital elevation model has been developed. Several reference plots on wetlands were used to built the classification tree model. Classification accuracy was evaluated at 85% using 190 independent sites evenly distributed over the study area. The classification results, reported on a vector format, constitute the Welland Conservation Atlas designed to provide guidance to each regional county municipality in the production of their conservation action plans.