Combination of two land cover classifications in San Juan city and surroundings, Argentina. Inter-seasonal variations assessment

Abstract

This work aims to assess inter-seasonal changes of a supervised classification in San Juan city and surroundings, Argentina, focusing on urban land use. A land cover supervised classification was performed from Landsat 8 (OLI) and Sentinel-1 SAR images and a spectral indices set. This classification showed a right class differentiation (Short/medium vegetation, Medium/tall vegetation, Bare soil, Erodible sediment, Rocky Material, Urban and Peri-urban), however, variations of the Urban class area between winter and summer seasons were observed. Alternatively, a classification based on VIIRS (NOAA-20) night lights images was performed. Although this second classification shows significant inter-seasonal differences, these can be explained by the vegetation medium/tall (trees) contrast between both seasons. A combination of day and night images classification was carried out, which represents an improvement over previous work on the seasonal stability of the Urban and Peri-urban classes. The obtained map is suitable to be used in future studies on the region.