Comparison of Landsat MSS and TM data for urban land-use classification

A supervised classification of digital Landsat Multispectral Scanner (MSS) data for the Raleigh, North Carolina, metropolitan area was conducted in 1982. These data were categorized into 10 land-use/land-cover types representative of the area. Digital Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data, for the Raleigh metropolitan area, were obtained in 1985 and analyzed from comparison to the MSS data. A stratified classification based upon principal components analysis was applied to the TM data, classifying the data into the 10 land-use/land-cover categories used in the analysis of the MSS data. Comparison of photo-interpreted land-use types and Landsat derived land-use types indicates that TM data provides significantly higher classification accuracies that can be obtained from MSS data.