A regional component of the bay project included the use of satellite Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) images for change detection analysis over the entire bay region (San Francisco Bay Change Detection and Mapping). The regional change image results generated using the satellite Landsat TM images gave a good regional picture of where things were changing around the bay, including some general vegetation/wetland changes and urban growth patterns. A portion of one of the Landsat TM images was used to generate a geographic location site map of the Sonoma Baylands area (shown in figure 1, left). Also, to show the scale of changes that can be detected using the satellite images a portion of several Landsat TM images collected in different years on different dates were used (shown in figure 2, left). Major changes at the site, such as from vegetation to water, can be seen in the satellite image data, but it's resolution was not acceptable for detecting changes at the scale needed for this project, particularly erosional changes within the small drainage channels that are in the order of a few meters wide.

Figure 2: Landsat TM Image Subareas
804 x 804, 419k

Animated Temporal Movie
400 x 400, 520k (requires JavaScript capable browser)