ED
Cen-
iges.
roxi-
ines,
eco-
ional
its in
inear
CASI
lp of
vari-
nple-
kenn-
Tage-
schaft
ir die
bioti-
d Re-
sinem
»- 1C).
Ik der
hlean-
zetati-
imlich
erner-
als In-
a total
je and
ulture,
pplied
led to
; envi-
been a
. land-
This new system is - regarding its structure and the se-
quence of processes - a very complex, complicated and
above all a highly dynamic system with specific morpho-
logical properties, with sediments and their specific prop-
erties, with the succession of vegetation and with a hy-
drographical situation. The parameters are on the one
hand completely anthropogenical determined — e.g. mor-
phological forms in dependency on the mining methods
and geotechnics — on the other hand they are only anthro-
pogenical initiated; however subsequently determined by
natural processes. For instance Tertiary sediments, which
cannot be recently-occurring, can get by the means of the
exploitation technology to the surface. The specific geo-
chemical properties have caused processes which are
often unknown or insufficiently known. Natural succes-
sion rows of vegetation have been developed on these
surface sediments. These areas represent a completely
new type of landscape. The knowledge about the pa-
rameters and the processes of these landscapes are also
insufficient as well as the knowledge about the potential
of the development of these landscapes in the next dec-
ades. This situation demands a parallelism of basic re-
search, of reclamation activities and the observation of
the occurring processes. It is necessary to develop imme-
diately methods and techniques for the assessment and
inventory of hopefully many possible parameters as well
as for the observing and supervising of the occurring
processes of the whole area. Once again anthropogenic
interventions in connection with the reclamation activities
lead to a change, an interference or a destruction of the
newly formed systems. The sand-dry-lawns on Tertiary
sediments, mentioned in Chapter 4.2, serve as an exam-
ple. They are considerably influenced by the beginnings
of the flooding of the residual holes and they might be
destroyed.
There is an incredibly high demand for information on
environmental changes by means of open-cast mining
activities and for long term monitoring of these "mining
successive landscapes".
1.1 Test area
The test area is part of the Eocene lignite deposit (bitumi-
nous brown lignite) in Central Germany. The widespread
lignite seams — mostly two seams of 5 to 15 m thickness-
are overlaid by marine Tertiary sediments and Pleistocene
glacigen sequences. The excavation of the lignite has led
to lasting changes in the hydrologic and hydrochemical
environment even miles away from the mining area itself.
The whole region is well suited for an ecological assess-
ment and an environmental supervising based on remote
sensing data because of its size, its high dynamic of the
processes, its completely inadequate database and its
partially limited possibilities for a field survey.
Intemational Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXII, Part 7, Budapest, 1998
The image processing and the mapping of training pre-
sented in this paper was mainly carried out in the former
mining area Goitsche near Bitterfeld.
2. DATABASE
2.1 Remote sensing data
Within the project multitemporal remote sensing data
were processed covering the whole area under investiga-
tion. Data of the spaceborne sensor Landsat TM and the
airborne sensor CASI were applied as well as natural
colour-, CIR- and PAN-photographs. The available high
resolution data for the open-cast mining area Goitsche
were taken by the Canadian CASI-scanner during the
measuring campaign on May 17, 1997. The recording of
all three aerial strips was made in spatial and spectral
mode. So we could analyse data covering the whole test-
ing area with a spectral resolution of 18 channels (spatial
mode) and single strips with the a spectral resolution of
288 channels (spectra! mode) in the wavelength range
from 433.4 to 949.3 nm respectively. The geometrical
resolution is 3.6 m. The selection of the bands was deter-
mined just immediately before the flight according to the
spectra of vegetation measured in the field.
2.2 Fieldwork
The fieldwork includes mapping, measurement of spectral
remission and the analysing of chemical and physical
sediment properties. The spectral remission of the sam-
ples are measured with the field spectrometer GER
Mark V in the wavelength range from 400 to 2500 nm in
the field and in the laboratory. The analysing methods
include the determination of the pH-value, conductivity,
CaCO; content, the moisture content, the content of or-
ganic matter as well as the determination of grain size
distribution. X-ray diffraction measurements to identify
minerals are practised as well.
In one part of the test site Goitsche extreme conditions of
the location have caused areas of sand-dry lawn (grass) to
remain in a permanent pioneer stage as a result of the
natural succession. Basing on the investigations by Mahn
et al., 1995 there are stationary time series on the species
distribution, on the congruence of various species as well
as data on various pedological parameters. Typical com-
binations of species were generalised to units of vegeta-
tion showing the clear correlation with specific location
properties.
3. IMAGE PROCESSING
The image processing steps are divided into data correc-
tion steps and the processing — the multispectral classifi-
cation. First the radiometric and geometric correction of
the row data was done in preparation for the classifica-
71
