| Abstract | As part of a joint research project conducted by the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing (CCRS), the Quebec Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPAQ), and the Centre québecois de coordination
de la télédétection (CQCT), an approach has been developed, since 1983, to produce maps of land cover types using LANDSAT TM data.
In the summer of 1985, MAPAQ drew up an exhaustive inventory of land cover types in four municipalities in the
Drummondville region in Quebec. To date, only the TM data on the municipality of Saint-Zéphirin-de-Courval have been analysed by the CCRS. The images were taken on June 4, July 22 and September 8, 1985. Supervised classifications were made. The
land cover inventory was digitized to obtain ground verification data for the whole municipality. This information made it possible to compare the results of the classifications, pixel by pixel, crop by crop, using a contingency table. Maps were
then produced on a scale of 1:200 000. The map of June 4, 1985 provides an overview of the agricultural activities in that municipality. The July 22 map is the most accurate and most useful produced in these three years. Grains, corn, grassland
and forest were correctly identified. The September 8 map also provides some useful results; however, there is more confusion between grains, hay and cleared land.
In conclusion, 1:20 000 scale maps of land cover types in the Saint Lawrence
lowlands in Quebec can be produced using bands 1, 3, 4 and 5 of the TM images at the end of July or during the month of August. |