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GEOCODING OF LAND COVER DATA 
BY REMOTE SENSING AND MICROCOMPUTER 
R. Wright 
Department of Geography 
Aberdeen University 
St. Mary's, High Street 
Old Aberdeen AB9 2UF 
Scotland (UK) 
P.G. Foschi 
Department of Geography 
University of California 
Santa Barbara 
CA 93106 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 
Robert Wright received his B.Sc. in Geography with honors from Glasgow 
University, his B.Sc. in Photogrammetric Engineering from the 
International Institute for Aerial Survey and Earth Sciences (I.T.C.) in 
the Netherlands, and his M.S. in Remote Sensing from the University of 
Michigan. He is a Lecturer at Aberdeen University where he is 
responsible for teaching and research in remote sensing, land surveying, 
and photogrammetry. He is principal investigator on a project funded by 
the Natural Environment Research Council to develop and test a method 
for producing land cover maps of Scotland from LANDSAT data and is an 
experimenter in the European SAR-580 study. 
Patricia G. Foschi received her B.S. in Statistics with highest honors 
from the University of California, Riverside and has completed all but 
the thesis for her M.A. in Geography from the University of California, 
Santa Barbara. Her awards have included a Regents Fellowship and a 
University Fellowship at U.C.S.B. She has been employed as an Assistant 
Statistician at the University of California Statewide Air Pollution 
Research Center and as a Research Assistant in the Geography Remote 
Sensing Unit, U.C.S.B. She is currently a visitor and Honorary Research 
Associate in the Geography Department, Aberdeen University, Scotland. 
ABSTRACT 
A remote sensing compatible land cover classification (32 classes) was 
devised for the rural/urban fringe of Aberdeen, and a method for the 
interpretation and recording of land cover data from aerial photography 
of different dates was tested. A software system was written to 
facilitate recording of the National Grid Square based data, to 
determine boundaries within grid squares, to sum class areas, to detect 
and sum the losses and gains in selected classes, to identify classes 
which have replaced agricultural land, and to determine land capability 
lost. Output is in the form of lineprinter maps and area tabulations. 
The system was designed to cope with geocoded data files from diverse 
sources including aerial photography, maps, and ground surveys. This 
approach was applied to 1966 and 1981 aerial photography of Old Machar 
Parish (an area of about 29 km2 in the Aberdeen City District) to 
identify and quantify agricultural change. Results were compared with 
the area of agricultural land lost according to the annual farm census 
for Old Machar Parish compiled by the Department of Agriculture and 
Fisheries for Scotland. Time estimates for the interpretation and 
processing of the data were calculated.