Stephen,
"Success" is a very broad and relative term. It all comes down to the
spatial and temporal scales of the process you are trying to monitor.
People have used Landsat, and even AVHHR (1km resolution) with success
(according to their needs and definitions) before. There are always
limitations and trade-offs, however, which may not be readily apparent
to people less familiar with remote sensing. I remember a friend being
upset once because Google Earth would not update the high resolution
images of her neighborhood every month.
An important thing to consider is that not all remote sensing
applications need to produce a "map", in the strict cartographic
precision sense. Many times, what you need/are getting is a spatially
explicit *estimate* of area or change . As I like to say, estimating
areas with remote sensing is akin to sampling a lake to estimate
phosphorus content. Mapping is akin to draining the entire lake water,
extracting all the phosphorus in it, and then quantifying the total amount.
I'll be happy to give advice if you can elaborate on what type of
vegetation change, which spatial and temporal scales, and what time
frame you wish to consider for your study.
Best,
*Dr. Thiago Sanna F. Silva*
Postdoctoral Fellow
Remote Sensing Division - National Institute for Space Research (INPE)
São José dos Campos, SP - Brazil
www.dsr.inpe.br
Personal Webpage: www.thiagosilva.wordpress.com
https://plus.google.com/101212496230661235420
On 07/02/2012 12:09 AM, Steve Young wrote:
Has anyone had success with using Landsat data for measuring vegetation
change over time? I'm finding that the detail is not fine enough and the
frequency is not short enough for what I am trying to do. I'm not an
expert, so I was curious to hear from others who have been successful
accessing/using the data.
Thanks,
Steve
___________________
Stephen L. Young, PhD
Weed Ecologist
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
West Central Research& Extension Center
402 West State Farm Road
North Platte, NE 69101
