Developing Land-use, Land Cover Maps for the Arroyo Colorado Study Area for 2001 and 2008

The Arroyo Colorado watershed in South Texas consists primarily of agriculture, grasslands, scrub, and urban development. Based on published land-use/land cover (LULC) maps from 2001, this study aims to develop maps using Landsat 5TM imagery to produce an Anderson Level 2 classification of the watershed for 2001 and 2008. Achieving high accuracy is the greatest challenge to developing useful maps. In addition to the confusion matrix to assess the overall accuracy of each map, close visual inspection is required to ensure the best classification results. The spectral variation among vegetated fields from pasture to grassland to shrubs to light urban development is too small for the classification algorithms to accurately develop a clear difference between these classes. Overall accuracy achieved for each year is greater than 80%. Using change detection methods to identify land-use changes during the study period reveals an increase of urban development and a decrease in the amount of land used for agriculture.