This research is part of a larger effort to develop methods to identify, characterize, and monitor irrigated agriculture on the Great Plains using time-series satellite imagery. The specific goal of the research is to investigate the use of multi-date Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) magery to answer the following questions: Can a time series of TM imagery accurately distinguish irrigated from non-irrigated crops, and can additional dates of imagery improve accuracies?

A total of five Landsat Thematic Mapper images have been acquired for a single growing season for Gray County in southwest Kansas. Subsets of the images will be composited to form a single time-series hyperspectral image containing 35 bands. In addition, each of the images will be transformed using NDVI and Tasseled Cap and will then be composited to a single hyperspectral image. Each of the hyperspectral images will then undergo a supervised classification procedure and will be statistically tested for accuracy using data from local Farm Service Agency (FSA).

Funding provided by the University of Kansas General Research Fund.

Stephen L. Egbert, P.I.
Brianna Mercier, Graduate Research Assistant

Mercier, B.N. and Egbert, S.L. 1999. Differentiating Between Irrigated and Non-Irrigated Cropland in Southwest Kansas Using Landsat Thematic Mapper Multitemporal Data. Abstracts, Annual Meetings, Great Plains/Rocky Mountain Division of the Association of American Geographers, Colorado Springs, Colorado, September 23-25.

Stephen L. Egbert