4.4 Data Processing
Analysis and interpretation of satellite data will be done by digital image processing as depicted by Figure 3. The process generally includes several steps:
1. Image pre-processing, this operation involves the correction of distortion, degradation and noise introduced during the image processing;
2. Image enhancement, this procedure will be applied to the image in order to increase the amount of information that can be displayed interactively;
3. Image classification, the objective of this operation is to replace visual analysis of the image data with quantitative techniques for automating the identification of features in a scene.
4.5 Change Detection and Analysis
Figure 3: Image processing procedure for land use/cover mapping
The two approaches for land use and land cover change detection include post-classification comparison and classification of multi-temporal data sets. The post-classification comparison approach, will be adopted for this study, the advantage of this approach is its capability to provide descriptive information on the nature of change that occurs.
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