**This document was provided by EarthSat Corporation along with the
GeoCover data.**

**Land Cover for Afghanistan and Surrounding Area**

**Draft Proposal**

Earth Satellite Corporation (EarthSat) is pleased to provide this
proposal to provide land cover for Afghanistan and surrounding area.
This product will be similar to EarthSat's GeoCover LC product that is
provided to NIMA, except this product will achieve greater accuracy in
the landcover classification and will use additional landcover classes
for developed and barren areas. This product will be referenced as
EarthSat's Customized GeoCover LC product. This landcover product will
be derived from 122 scenes of Landsat ETM data. The landcover will be
derived from the 30-meter resolution multispectral imagery. The 15-meter
panchromatic imagery will be used as collateral information to assist in
creating various landcover classes, especially the two developed area
classes.

This proposal describes (1) the study area, (2) the Landsat ETM scenes
to be used, (3) the landcover categories proposed, (4) the raster
products to be delivered, (5) optional vector landcover products that
can be provided, (6) ground truth data that will be required, (7) client
and EarthSat's data rights, (8) proposed delivery schedule, and (9)
cost.

**Study Area**

EarthSat's Customized LC products will be produced for the study area as
shown in Figure 1. It should be noted that EarthSat's has a separate
proposal to orthorectify the 122 Landsat ETM scenes required to cover
this study and the cost of the imagery and the orthorectification of
this imagery is not included in this study area.

The approximate study area extend is from 27.5 degrees latitude north to
38.75 degrees latitude north and from 59.5 degrees longitude east to
75.5 degrees longitude east. The Landsat ETM imagery will be
orthorectified to UTM, Zone 42, WGS84. The extent of the study area in
UTMs will be from -500000 E to 1300000 E and from 2950000 N to 4450000
N, resulting in a study area that is 1,800 km wide (east/west) by 1,500
km high (north/south). The orthorectified imagery will be provided as
128 tiles (in UTM) with each tile being 150 km wide (east/west) by 150
km high (north/south). This size was chosen to ensure that a single tile
of orthorectified Landsat ETM imagery would fit on a single CD. Up to 10
tiles of landcover data will fit on each CD.

**Figure 1. Study area for EarthSat's Customized GeoCover LC product for
Afghanistan and surrounding area.**

![](media/image1.wmf){width="5.577083333333333in"
height="6.239583333333333in"}

**Landsat ETM Scenes**

Table 1 provides a list of the proposed Landsat TM scenes to be used in
this study. Figure 2 shows this distribution of these scenes by time.

**Table 1. List of the proposed 104 scenes to be used for creating the
EarthSat's Customized GeoCover LC product for Afghanistan and
surrounding area.**

  -------------- ----------------- ----------------- ----------------------
  **Number**     **Path/Row**      **Date**          **% Cloud Cover**

  1              P147R040          24-May-00         0

  2              P147R041          18-May-01         0

  3              P148R036          18-May-01         0

  4              P148R037          13-Apr-00         16

  5              P148R038          15-May-00         3

  6              P148R039          2-May-01          0

  7              P148R040          2-May-01          0

  8              P148R041          2-May-01          0

  9              P149R033          7-Apr-01          3

  10             P149R034          7-Apr-01          3

  11             P149R035          6-May-00          2

  12             P149R036          7-Apr-01          0

  13             P149R037          7-Apr-01          0

  14             P149R038          7-Apr-01          0

  15             P149R039          25-May-01         0

  16             P149R040          7-Apr-01          0

  17             P149R041          7-Apr-01          0

  18             P150R033          30-Apr-01         1

  19             P150R034          30-Apr-01         2

  20             P150R035          11-Apr-00         0

  21             P150R036          11-Apr-00         0

  22             P150R037          30-Apr-01         0

  23             P150R038          30-Apr-01         0

  24             P150R039          30-Apr-01         0

  25             P150R040          30-Apr-01         0

  26             P150R041          30-Apr-01         0

  27             P151R033          24-Aug-00         0

  28             P151R034          23-May-01         3

  29             P151R035          23-May-01         0

  30             P151R036          21-Apr-01         0

  31             P151R037          23-May-01         0

  32             P151R038          23-May-01         0

  33             P151R039          23-May-01         0

  34             P151R040          23-May-01         0

  35             P151R041          23-May-01         0

  36             P152R033          2-Aug-01          0

  37             P152R034          2-Aug-01          0

  38             P152R035          2-Aug-01          0

  39             P152R036          30-May-01         0

  40             P152R037          28-Apr-01         0

  41             P152R038          28-Apr-01         0

  42             P152R039          28-Apr-01         0

  43             P152R040          28-Apr-01         0

  44             P152R041          28-Apr-01         0

  45             P153R033          8-Jul-01          0

  46             P153R034          8-Jul-01          0

  47             P153R035          8-Jul-01          0

  48             P153R036          25-Aug-01         0

  49             P153R037          25-Aug-01         0

  50             P153R038          3-Apr-01          0

  51             P153R039          3-Apr-01          0

  52             P153R040          3-Apr-01          0

  53             P153R041          3-Apr-01          0

  54             P154R033          31-Jul-01         0

  55             P154R034          31-Jul-01         0

  56             P154R035          29-Jun-01         0

  57             P154R036          29-Jun-01         0

  58             P154R037          29-Jun-01         0

  59             P154R038          29-Jun-01         0

  60             P154R039          29-Jun-01         0

  61             P154R040          29-Jun-01         0

  62             P154R041          12-May-01         0

  63             P155R033          3-May-01          0

  64             P155R034          3-May-01          0

  65             P155R035          3-May-01          0

  66             P155R036          3-May-01          0

  67             P155R037          3-May-01          0

  68             P155R038          3-May-01          0

  69             P155R039          3-May-01          0

  70             P155R040          3-May-01          0

  71             P155R041          3-May-01          0

  72             P156R033          27-Jun-01         0

  73             P156R034          27-Jun-01         0

  74             P156R035          27-Jun-01         0

  75             P156R036          27-Jun-01         0

  76             P156R037          27-Jun-01         0

  77             P156R038          10-May-01         0

  78             P156R039          10-May-01         0

  79             P156R040          10-May-01         0

  80             P156R041          10-May-01         0

  81             P157R033          14-May-00         0

  82             P157R034          17-May-01         0

  83             P157R035          17-May-01         0

  84             P157R036          17-May-01         0

  85             P157R037          17-May-01         0

  86             P157R038          17-May-01         0

  87             P157R039          30-Mar-01         0

  88             P157R040          1-May-01          0

  89             P157R041          1-May-01          0

  90             P158R033          3-Apr-00          0

  91             P158R034          11-Jul-01         0

  92             P158R035          11-Jul-01         0

  93             P158R036          8-May-01          0

  94             P158R037          25-Jun-01         0

  95             P158R038          25-Jun-01         0

  96             P158R039          8-May-01          0

  97             P158R040          8-May-01          0

  98             P158R041          8-May-01          0

  99             P159R033          31-May-01         0

  100            P159R034          3-Aug-01          0

  101            P159R035          15-May-01         0

  102            P159R036          15-May-01         0

  103            P159R037          15-May-01         0

  104            P160R033          20-Jun-00         0
  -------------- ----------------- ----------------- ----------------------

(Note the above list is being updated to 122 scenes)

**Figure 2. Distribution of the proposed 122 scenes to be used for
creating the EarthSat's Customized GeoCover LC product for Afghanistan
and surrounding area.**

![](media/image2.wmf)

**Landcover Categories**

The landcover categories in the standard GeoCover LC product follow
closely to those defined by Anderson et al. in his 1976 publication, "A
land use and landcover classification system for use with remote sensor
data" (U.S.G.S. Professional Paper 964). Brief descriptions of the
13-landcover categories used in the standard GeoCover LC product are
shown below in Table 2.

**Table 2. Brief Description of the Standard GeoCover LC Landcover
Classes**

+-------+-----------+-------------------------------------------------+
| **Cl  | **Class   | **Class Description**                           |
| ass** | Name**    |                                                 |
|       |           |                                                 |
| **Num |           |                                                 |
| ber** |           |                                                 |
+=======+===========+=================================================+
| **1** | #         | Woody vegetation \> 3 meters (10 ft) in height  |
|       |  Forest,  | that lose leaves periodically due to changing   |
|       | Deciduous | seasons or drought. Canopy closure must be      |
|       |           | \>35% (\<35% = Category 3). Also included in    |
|       |           | this category are areas commonly referenced as  |
|       |           | "swamp" or forested wetland if dominated by a   |
|       |           | deciduous canopy.                               |
+-------+-----------+-------------------------------------------------+
| **2** | **Forest, | Woody vegetation \> 3 meters (10 ft) in height  |
|       | Ev        | that retain their leaves throughout seasons.    |
|       | ergreen** | Evergreen includes both needle leaf and broad   |
|       |           | leaf species. Some tree plantations may be      |
|       |           | included in this class. Canopy closure must be  |
|       |           | \>35% (\<35% = Category 3)                      |
+-------+-----------+-------------------------------------------------+
| **3** | **Scru    | Woody vegetation less than 3 meters (10 ft) in  |
|       | b/Shrub** | height, with both closed and open canopies.     |
|       |           | Minimum ground cover is 10%; conversion to      |
|       |           | forest occurs at 35% canopy coverage provided   |
|       |           | the trees are \> 3 m in height. Areas of forest |
|       |           | that have experienced burning (burn scars) are  |
|       |           | classified in this category.                    |
+-------+-----------+-------------------------------------------------+
| **4** | **Gr      | Grass and herbaceous areas. Category may        |
|       | assland** | include herbaceous wetlands if images are       |
|       |           | collected during dry season or periods of       |
|       |           | drought. Land cover types commonly referenced   |
|       |           | as savanna, open savanna, and woody savanna are |
|       |           | included in this category. Areas of grassland   |
|       |           | and scrub/shrub that have experienced burning   |
|       |           | (burn scars) are classified in this category.   |
+-------+-----------+-------------------------------------------------+
| **5** | **Barren  | Includes sand dunes, desert, rock outcrops,     |
|       | /Sparsely | bare soil other than bare agricultural land,    |
|       | Ve        | and sparsely vegetated areas of grass and       |
|       | getated** | shrub. This category includes non-vegetated     |
|       |           | strip mines and quarries except where covered   |
|       |           | by development (urban/built-up) or water        |
|       |           | (water).                                        |
+-------+-----------+-------------------------------------------------+
| **6** | **Urban/B | Cities, towns, wide roads, airports, other      |
|       | uilt-Up** | developed areas. Areas of non-urban cover       |
|       |           | within the urban fringe are only separated from |
|       |           | the urban category if they exceed 25 ha (500 x  |
|       |           | 500 m if square or 307 pixels) in size and 2    |
|       |           | pixels (58 meters) in width.                    |
+-------+-----------+-------------------------------------------------+
| **7** | **Agr     | All non-rice agricultural fields, both with     |
|       | iculture, | crop or fallow; highly managed pastures and     |
|       | Other**   | haylands (but not grasslands commonly           |
|       |           | referenced as "rangeland"); complex mosaics of  |
|       |           | natural vegetation and cropland. Some orchards  |
|       |           | and tree plantations, such as palm or date      |
|       |           | plantations, may be included in this category.  |
+-------+-----------+-------------------------------------------------+
| **8** | **Agr     | Paddy agricultural fields, mainly rice, that    |
|       | iculture, | are seasonally inundated with water. Depending  |
|       | Rice**    | upon the season of acquired imagery, some rice  |
|       |           | paddies may be included in the "Agriculture,    |
|       |           | Other" class if the paddies are not flooded.    |
+-------+-----------+-------------------------------------------------+
| **9** | *         | Emergent herbaceous wetlands, as well as other  |
|       | *Wetland, | irregularly inundated areas that may not be     |
|       | Permanent | vegetated, including: mud flats, saltpans, and  |
|       | Her       | playas. Vegetated herbaceous wetlands may be    |
|       | baceous** | referenced as "marsh". Areas commonly           |
|       |           | referenced as "swamp", including forested       |
|       |           | wetlands, are not included in this wetland      |
|       |           | class. Forested wetlands, with the exception of |
|       |           | "Mangrove" are included in one of the forest    |
|       |           | categories. Areas of burn scar within a wetland |
|       |           | are included in this category.                  |
+-------+-----------+-------------------------------------------------+
| *     | *         | Regularly inundated coastal areas that are      |
| *10** | *Wetland, | covered by mangrove species. Areas of burn scar |
|       | M         | within a mangrove wetland are included in this  |
|       | angrove** | category.                                       |
+-------+-----------+-------------------------------------------------+
| *     | **Water** | All type of water bodies, including rivers,     |
| *11** |           | lakes, reservoirs, ponds, bays, and estuaries.  |
|       |           | This categorization does not differentiate      |
|       |           | between these water classes.                    |
+-------+-----------+-------------------------------------------------+
| *     | **I       | Areas covered by permanent or nearly permanent  |
| *12** | ce/Snow** | ice and/or snow.                                |
+-------+-----------+-------------------------------------------------+
| *     | **Cl      | Areas in which the ground surface is masked by  |
| *13** | oud/Cloud | cloud, smoke, or thick haze, or their           |
|       | Shadow/No | concurrent shadows. Also includes any area for  |
|       | Data**    | which no meaningful Thematic Mapper signal is   |
|       |           | received, e.g., line drops, areas outside of    |
|       |           | the coverage of the outermost TM image          |
|       |           | footprint.                                      |
+-------+-----------+-------------------------------------------------+

This Customized GeoCover LC product will have 19 landcover classes as
shown in table 3.

**Table 3. Brief Description of the Proposed Customized GeoCover LC
Landcover Classes**

+---------+-------------+---------------------------------------------+
| **Class | **Class**   | **Class Description**                       |
| N       |             |                                             |
| umber/\ | **Name**    |                                             |
| G       |             |                                             |
| eoCover |             |                                             |
| LC      |             |                                             |
| Class** |             |                                             |
+=========+=============+=============================================+
| 1/1     | Forest,     | Woody vegetation \> 3 meters (10 ft) in     |
|         | Deciduous   | height that lose leaves periodically due to |
|         |             | changing seasons or drought. Canopy closure |
|         |             | must be \>35% (\<35% = Category 3). Also    |
|         |             | included in this category are areas         |
|         |             | commonly referenced as "swamp" or forested  |
|         |             | wetland if dominated by a deciduous canopy. |
+---------+-------------+---------------------------------------------+
| 2/2     | Forest,     | Woody vegetation \> 3 meters (10 ft) in     |
|         | Evergreen   | height that retain their leaves throughout  |
|         |             | seasons. Evergreen includes both needle     |
|         |             | leaf and broad leaf species. Some tree      |
|         |             | plantations may be included in this class.  |
|         |             | Canopy closure must be \>35% (\<35% =       |
|         |             | Category 3)                                 |
+---------+-------------+---------------------------------------------+
| 3/3     | Scrub/Shrub | Woody vegetation less than 3 meters (10 ft) |
|         |             | in height, with both closed and open        |
|         |             | canopies. Minimum ground cover is 10%;      |
|         |             | conversion to forest occurs at 35% canopy   |
|         |             | coverage provided the trees are \> 3 m in   |
|         |             | height. Areas of forest that have           |
|         |             | experienced burning (burn scars) are        |
|         |             | classified in this category.                |
+---------+-------------+---------------------------------------------+
| 4/4     | Grassland   | Category may include herbaceous wetlands if |
|         |             | images are collected during dry season or   |
|         |             | periods of drought. Land cover types        |
|         |             | commonly referenced as savanna and open     |
|         |             | savanna are included in this category.      |
|         |             | Areas of grassland and scrub that have      |
|         |             | experienced burning (burn scars) are        |
|         |             | classified in this category.                |
+---------+-------------+---------------------------------------------+
|         | Barren      | Includes rock outcrops, desert, bare soil   |
|         |             | other than bare agricultural land, sparsely |
|         |             | vegetated areas of grass and shrub and bare |
|         |             | soil sand dunes. This category also         |
|         |             | includes non-vegetated strip mines and      |
|         |             | quarries except where covered by            |
|         |             | development (urban/built-up) or water       |
|         |             | (water)                                     |
+---------+-------------+---------------------------------------------+
| 5/5     | Barren -    | Barren or sparsely vegetated areas that     |
|         | Bedrock     | primarily contain rock outcropping          |
+---------+-------------+---------------------------------------------+
| 6/5     | Barren      | Barren or sparsely vegetated areas that     |
|         | -Colluvial  | primarily contain eroded material found at  |
|         |             | the bottom or on the lower slopes of a      |
|         |             | hill.                                       |
+---------+-------------+---------------------------------------------+
| 7/5     | Barren -    | Barren portions of alluvial fans, the fan   |
|         | Alluvial    | shaped accumulation of alluvial deposits    |
|         | Fans        | usually found at gradient changes such      |
|         |             | where streams transition from mountains to  |
|         |             | valleys. These are sedimentary deposits     |
|         |             | formed by flowing water.                    |
+---------+-------------+---------------------------------------------+
| 8/5     | Barren      | Dry, non-vegetated, disturbed, river,       |
|         | -Alluvial   | stream, or gully deposits. These are also   |
|         | Streams     | sedimentary deposits formed by flowing      |
|         |             | water.                                      |
+---------+-------------+---------------------------------------------+
| 9/5     | Barren -    | Barren areas where extractive industries    |
|         | Mines and   | (e.g. strip mines or quarries) are active,  |
|         | Quarries    | or have been active in the past.            |
+---------+-------------+---------------------------------------------+
| 10/5    | Barren -    | Barren or sparsely vegetated areas that are |
|         | Dunes       | covered with, or subject to dunes.          |
+---------+-------------+---------------------------------------------+
| 11/6    | High        | Cities, towns, wide roads, large buildings  |
|         | Intensity   | and/or industrial complexes and other       |
|         | Developed   | intensively developed areas, often          |
|         |             | considered the urban core. Areas of         |
|         |             | non-urban cover within the urban fringe are |
|         |             | only separated from the urban category if   |
|         |             | they exceed 25 ha (500 x 500 m if square or |
|         |             | 307 pixels) in size and 2 pixels (58        |
|         |             | meters) in width.                           |
+---------+-------------+---------------------------------------------+
| 12/6    | Low         | Less intensively developed potions of       |
|         | Intensity   | cities and towns, and villages large enough |
|         | Developed   | to identified in the ETM data. This         |
|         |             | includes lower density residential, and     |
|         |             | light commercial and industrial areas. As   |
|         |             | with the high intensity developed class,    |
|         |             | areas of non-urban cover within the urban   |
|         |             | fringe are only separated from the urban    |
|         |             | category if they exceed 25 ha (500 x 500 m  |
|         |             | if square or 307 pixels) in size and 2      |
|         |             | pixels (58 meters) in width.                |
+---------+-------------+---------------------------------------------+
| 13/7    | Agriculture | All non-rice agricultural fields, that are  |
|         | --          | irrigated, are near a water source/and or   |
|         | Irrigated   | have irrigation infrastructure. Some        |
|         |             | orchards and tree plantations, such as palm |
|         |             | or date plantations, may be included in     |
|         |             | this category                               |
+---------+-------------+---------------------------------------------+
| 14/7    | Agriculture | Non irrigated agriculture areas. These      |
|         | -- Rain Fed | areas include both active and inactive (due |
|         |             | to moisture limitations, recently abandoned |
|         |             | cropland) agricultural areas. This class    |
|         |             | also includes highly managed pastures       |
|         |             | and/or haylands (but not less managed       |
|         |             | grasslands commonly referenced as           |
|         |             | "rangeland"); as well as complex mosaics of |
|         |             | natural vegetation and cropland. .          |
+---------+-------------+---------------------------------------------+
| 15/8    | Ag          | Paddy agricultural fields, mainly rice,     |
|         | riculture - | that are seasonally inundated with water.   |
|         | Rice        | Depending upon the season of acquired       |
|         |             | imagery, some rice paddies may be included  |
|         |             | in the "Agriculture, Irrigated" class if    |
|         |             | the paddies are not flooded.                |
+---------+-------------+---------------------------------------------+
| 16/9    | Wetlands    | Regularly or irregularly inundated areas    |
|         |             | that may be vegetated (emergent herbaceous  |
|         |             | wetlands) as well as others that may not be |
|         |             | vegetated, including: mud flats, saltpans,  |
|         |             | and playas. This category includes          |
|         |             | vegetated herbaceous wetlands that are      |
|         |             | often referred to as "marsh". Areas         |
|         |             | commonly referenced as "swamp", including   |
|         |             | forested wetlands, are generally not        |
|         |             | included in this wetland class. Forested    |
|         |             | wetlands are included in one of the forest  |
|         |             | categories. Areas of burn scar within a     |
|         |             | wetland are included in this category       |
+---------+-------------+---------------------------------------------+
| 17/11   | Water       | All type of water bodies, including rivers, |
|         |             | lakes, reservoirs, ponds, bays, and         |
|         |             | estuaries. This categorization does not     |
|         |             | differentiate between these water classes   |
+---------+-------------+---------------------------------------------+
| 18/12   | Snow/Ice    | Areas covered by ice and/or snow (generally |
|         |             | permanent or nearly permanent) at the time  |
|         |             | of image acquisition.                       |
+---------+-------------+---------------------------------------------+
| 19/13   | Clo         | Areas in which the ground surface is masked |
|         | uds/Shadows | by cloud, smoke, or thick haze, or their    |
|         |             | concurrent shadows. Terrain shadows that    |
|         |             | completely mask the land cover are also     |
|         |             | included in this class.                     |
+---------+-------------+---------------------------------------------+

**EarthSat's Customized GeoCover LC Products**

EarthSat proposes to deliver three rasterized landcover products as
described below:

**1) Landcover Raster File with No Minimum Mapping Unit for Full TM
Scene in UTM Projection in ERDAS IMAGINE 8.4 Format**

This land cover file has not been filtered or processed to a
user-specified minimum mapping unit (MMU). Consequently, it will have
inherent speckle and noise of raster data categorizations from remotely
sensed data. The speckle and noise is removed when this data set is
clumped to the user-specified minimum mapping unit. This UNCLUMPED
raster file will be an 8-bit ERDAS IMAGINE file with cell values that
indicate the landcover codes (see Table 3 for these codes). Fig. 3 and 4
provide examples of EarthSat's standard GeoCover LC product .

![](media/image3.png){width="5.4015748031496065in"
height="5.104724409448819in"}

![](media/image4.wmf){width="6.3082677165354335in"
height="6.086614173228346in"}

2\) Land Cover Raster File with a Minimum Mapping Unit for Full TM Scene
in UTM Projection in ERDAS IMAGINE 8.4 Format

This landcover file will be processed to remove much of the speckle and
noise associated with landcover categorizations based upon Landsat TM
data. The only difference between this file and the previous file is the
incorporation of EarthSat's CLUMP and ELIMINATE routines to generalize
the land cover to a user specified minimum mapping unit. EarthSat's
CLUMP routine is used to define the size of all contiguous features with
the same landcover code. EarthSat's ELIMINATE routine removes any
contiguous features of the same landcover code (with the exception of
water) that were smaller in size than the user-specified minimum mapping
unit. The predominant land cover surrounding the eliminated clump
replaces the areas of small clumps that are eliminated. Note that the
procedure employed using CLUMP and ELIMINATE will not remove narrow
linear features with areas exceeding the user-specified minimum mapping
unit that would be removed if standard filtering procedures were used to
create the minimum mapping unit. Landsat TM data typically can be used
to generate maps at scales as large as 1:100,000. At this scales,
EarthSat would recommend a minimum mapping unit between 1 and 4 ha. For
water, a 0.2-hectare MMU (approximately 30m by 30m) will be used. This
landcover raster with a minimum mapping unit will be an 8-bit ERDAS
IMAGINE file with the landcover codes as shown in Table 3. An example of
this product is shown in Figure 5. The size of the MMU can be specified
by the client.

3\) Land Cover Raster File with a Minimum Mapping Unit Tiled to
Correspond with the 150 km by 150 km Cells used in the Orthorectified
ETM imagery in UTM Projection in ERDAS IMAGINE 8.4 Format

This file contains all landcover classes and is a raster file in ERDAS
IMAGINE 8.4 format. This is an eight-bit/pixel file. The file is in UTM
projection (Zone 42 WGS 84) clipped precisely to 150 km by 150 km cells.
There will be 120 of these cells to cover the entire study area.

![](media/image5.png){width="6.05in" height="5.811811023622047in"}

**Optional Vector Coverages**

If desired, EarthSat can reproject the rasterize landcover product to
Geographic projection and clip the geographic raster product to 1-degree
by 1-degree tiles. There will be approximately 224 1-degree by 1-degree
tiles to cover this study area. The clipped and reprojected raster files
will be vectorized using EarthSat's proprietary algorithm (RTOV) that
reduces the number of vertices within a line segment. EarthSat's vector
file is then imported as an ARC/INFO coverage. Only one vector file of
all landcover classes will be delivered.

The vector coverages are checked to insure that there are no label
errors and that the coverages are fully topologically consistent. The
coverage will contain all 19 landcover classes. Each polygon in this
coverage will be attributed with two variables, LANDCOVER and GRID_CODE.
The LANDCOVER values will be the landcover class names as shown in Table
3. The GRID-CODE values will be 0 -- 19 representing each of the
landcover classes. This ARC coverage is exported using the command shown
below:

> EXPORT \<coverage\> \<exchange file\> NONE.

Using NONE as the compress option in ARC/INFO has resolved a problems in
importing these files with ArcView. These files are compressed with UNIX
COMPRESS and can be uncompressed with UNIX UNCOMPRESS or Windows WINZIP.

### Ground Truth

The accuracy of EarthSat's Customized GeoCover LC improves as the
availability of ground truth increases. During the last 30 years
EarthSat has processed over 30,000 Landsat TM scenes world-wide for a
variety of user applications. This wealth of international experience
has given EarthSat the opportunity and challenge to search, locate, and
acquire a vast array of ground truth data including thousands of site
visits worldwide. In conjunction with this project, EarthSat will
continue to expand ground truth collection using all sources possible.
EarthSat has also developed techniques to propagate small samples of
ground truth throughout a region in a similar manner as GeoCover Ortho
utilizes a small set of very accurate geodetic control to provide
geometric control to a large number of images. EarthSat also has a great
deal of experience processing remotely sensed images for land cover
interpretation for the US government where NTM and other NIMA data
provided much of the ground truth information. EarthSat understands the
great value NTMs can provide as another component in ground truth
compilation and would like to work with the client to take advantage of
this information. For this project, EarthSat is requesting up to 150
frames of NTMs. Based upon our experience, we believe this additional
ground truth information will greatly enhance the accuracy of the
landcover categorization. EarthSat maintains a SCIF and has a staff of
cleared personnel who are accustomed to using this information as an
input into TM landcover categorizations. Any NTMs provided for this
project would be used only on for this project and will be returned to
the client immediately upon completion of this project.

**Data Rights**

EarthSat is providing EarthSat's standard GeoCover LC to NIMA as a
commercial product with exclusive commercial rights retained by EarthSat
and NIMA retaining a full Government Purpose license. Under this
arrangement, NIMA is granted an unlimited license to use, distribute,
disseminate, modify, and update EarthSat's GeoCover LC Version 1.0
products. EarthSat owns the GeoCover LC Version 1.0 products and has
similar rights as NIMA to use, distribute, disseminate, modify, and
update EarthSat's GeoCover product. In addition to the unlimited
Government Purpose Rights to use, distribute, disseminate, and update
GeoCover LC, the Government retains the right to insert GeoCover into
other products that the Government decides may or may not become
publicly available, as long as the EarthSat copyright of the GeoCover LC
is displayed on the publicly available product.

For this project, the client will own EarthSat's Customized GeoCover LC
product and the client has absolute, unrestricted rights to this
product. EarthSat reserves the right to recode the 19-class landcover
product to the 13-class landcover product as shown in Table 3 and to
retain this product as input to EarthSat's Standard GeoCover LC product.
EarthSat will have no rights the 19-class landcover product. EarthSat
will propose to NIMA to reformat this product to meet NIMA's
specification for the Standard GeoCover LC product for only the cost of
reformatting and distribution.

### Delivery Schedule

EarthSat anticipates requiring over 80 staff hours per Landsat ETM scene
processed. EarthSat can create a team of 10 image analysts without
impacting EarthSat's current US contracts. Using a team of 10 analysts,
the product can be produced in 4.5 months from the completion of the
orthorectification of the Landsat ETM images. EarthSat can create a team
of 20 image analysts and create this product in 2.5 months from the
completion of the orthorectification of the Landsat ETM images. However,
to create a team of 20 image analysts, EarthSat will need to modify the
delivery schedule of the standard GeoCover LC products to NIMA. By using
EarthSat's entire GeoCover LC team and additional EarthSat employees,
the 19-class landcover raster products can be produced in approximately
1 month.

**Cost**

EarthSat's anticipates a cost of approximately \$5,500 per scene for a
total cost of \$671,000 to create the raster landcover products
described above for the entire 122-scene study area. The cost per scene
applies if 50 or more scenes are tasked.