Strategies for generalizing raster-based land cover
data were investigated. Generalization strategies were
studied as part of the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS)
Federal Land Information System (FLIS). Area filtering,
category aggregation, resampling, and modal search and
replace comprised the strategies tested on USGS Alaska
Interim Land Cover data.
Generalization of the land cover data was deemed necessary
for two reasons: 1) reduction in the volume of homogeneous
land cover regions required for computer memory
storage, and 2) simplification of the highly complex land cover map. The generalization strategies were evaluated
based upon how well they maintained the integrity of land
cover information while minimizing the number of homogeneous
land cover regions. Maintenance of land cover
information after application of a generalization strategy
was measured by omission and commission errors, percent unchanged, Cohen's statistic, and the number of land cover
regions.
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