The field campaign was conducted in the Summer of 1999. Two teams of students set out for one month of data collection. Field teams were thus able to follow their route on the laptop while in the field, and driving between points. Each of the two field teams had a unique focus. The first team concentrated on forested land cover types and the second on agriculture.
Built environments are more easily identifiable from remotely sensed imagery, with few exceptions.
Data collected for each forested sample include a survey of general species composition, tree heights, topography, and canopy closure. The agriculture team collected data on crop type, farming practices including irrigation and tilling, vegetation height, canopy closure, and soil moisture and color. The number of sites per land cover class observed in the field is shown in the following table. The field data have been incorporated into the land cover mapping effort.