Remote sensing and statistics for the investigation of uncontrolled landfill sites: A case study in Lesvos Island, Greece

Abstract

Data collection for environmental sciences and, especially for land cover inventory, is an expensive and time-consuming procedure. On the other hand, the satellite remote sensing has been introduced with advantage for the study and analysis of the spectral response of objects located on the earth surface [1, 2]. Any material sited on the earth surface has a specific spectral response, as result of the interaction between the object and the incident electromagnetic energy. Until recently, few results have been published concerning the spectral response of uncontrolled landfill sites (ULS) and its relationship with electromagnetic energy. In order to register and investigate the spectral behavior of solid wastes, bare of soils, field data has been collected from Lesvos Island, Greece. The corresponding satellite image was taken on August 266 1999 by Landsat-5 TM satellite, covering the whole island of Lesvos. Thirteen ULS were investigated for their spectral response. Their spectral behavior and the results of the statistical analysis showed that wastes present a spectral response significantly different from the neighboring land covers. In addition, supervised classifier grouped all ULS in one class, apart from the rest of the existing classes.