ES 351 Lab on Landsat

ES 351 Lab Exercise
Flint Hills Landsat MSS

This exercise is based on a Landsat MSS scene from October 1988, a drought year. This scene depicts the Flint Hills region southwest of Emporia, including parts of southern Chase, southwestern Lyon, northeastern Butler, and northwestern Greenwood counties (see maps). The following files may be downloaded via FTP. Note: download both *.rst and *.rdc files to your personal student directory. These files are in Idrisi Andes format.

FH-1, FH-2, FH-4

The Santa Fe Railroad and Kansas Turnpike cross the area. The region is predominantly grassland with limited cropland. Rivers of four drainage basins have their headwaters in the area: South Fork Cottonwood, Verdigris, Walnut, and Fall. Fox Lake is an artificial reservoir, dammed on the Walnut River in the southwestern corner of the scene.

Kite aerial photograph overlooking Flint Hills landscape in central Chase County. Note the mix of prairie grassland and wooded stream courses. This locality is included in the Landsat MSS scene and was taken in October, same time of year as the Landsat dataset. Photo date 2001, © S.W. & J.S. Aber.

Use the Idrisi Explorer (bar on left) to examine the metadata for FH-1, FH-2, and FH-4. Note the general attributes of these files.

1. How many pixels make up this scene? What is the ground area (in km²) covered by this image?

2. What part of the spectrum does each Landsat MSS band represent? See bands designations (Landsat 4-5).

Now examine each of these images using the Display launcher. Select title, no legend, and grey palette.

3. Why are bands 1 and 2 generally dark in comparison to band 4? Explain on basis of spectral characteristics of ground cover.

Next read about the COMPOSITE module; this is the most important module for processing multispectral images. Use COMPOSITE (5th button from left) to prepare a standard false-color composite: band 1 = blue, band 2 = green, band 4 = red. Name the composite image FH4-124C. Accept the default selections for stretch, output, and saturation. Fill in an appropriate title, and click OK. The image will be displayed automatically.

4. Describe the color coding used to make this image. Note the spectral (color) range for each band and how it is depicted in the composite image.

5. Describe the appearance of the following features.

Fox Lake.
Kansas Turnpike (diagonal line above Fox Lake).
Uplands east of Fox Lake.
South Fork Cottonwood valley.

Stream erosion is gradually dissecting the Flint Hills upland. The geomorphology of divide regions can be quite dynamic, as streams erode headward from different directions at different rates. Notice some unusual features displayed by stream patterns in this scene. These anomalies may be related to variations in bedrock, such as folds, faults and fractures, or to former stream captures, in which headwaters of one stream were diverted into another drainage basin.

6. Describe some anomalous drainage features in this scene.

The region west of the Kansas Turnpike is part of the antelope restoration area. Note the general vegetation, landuse, topography, water bodies, and other environmental conditions of this area, as depicted on the false-color composite from 1988.

Herd of pronghorn (antelope) in the Flint Hills near the "cattle pens" exit on the Kansas Turnpike (I-35), southeastern Chase County. Antelope are the light-colored "spots" near the horizon. Photo date 10/95, © J.S. Aber.

As a final task, prepare an map composition based on the false-color composite. Save and name your composition FLINT, and prepare an image file (bmp, gif or jpg) to turn in. The composition should have the following elements.

Title, such as "Antelope Restoration Area."
Subtitle with the image date and your name.
Scale bar 5 km long, divided into 5 parts.
North arrow, showing true north direction (see maps, roads).

7. What declination did you use for true north?

Turn in

Written answers (1-7).
Image file for FLINT composition.