IMAGE CLASSIFICATION USING LANDSAT TM IMAGES TO MAPPING WETLANDS VEGETATION (BANHADOS) OF THE CATARINENSE PLATEAU, SOUTHERN BRAZIL. T. L. de Magalhaes a, *, M. B. Schimalski b , A. Mantovani b , R.L.C. Bortoluzzi b a Master Degree Program Student, Santa Catarina State University, Lages, Brazil – tatilobato@gmail.com b Dept. of Forest Engineering, Santa Catarina State University, Lages, Brazil - schmalski@uol.com.br; mantovani@cav.udesc.br; rosebortoluzzi@gmail.com KEY WORDS: Remote sensing, Environmental monitoring, Minimum noise fraction (MNF), Object-oriented, Maximum Likelihood classificatory, Freshwater wetland. ABSTRACT: Wetlands embody a diversified scope of ecosystems. This environment presents a high richness of botanical species, acting as an interface between earthly and aquatic systems providing a rich biodiversity, including endangered endemic species. Catarinense Plateau, located in Southern Brazil, presents these typical wetlands, occurring in altitudes between 800 to 1600m, yet scarcely researched about its occurrence and spatial borders. They occur in small and medium sized extensions, are frequent and occur intermingled to altitude meadows. This study aims to map and delimitate the occurrence of wetlands, and was realized in the Catarinense Plateau, localized in Santa Catarina State (between 27°30`S, 51°00`W and 28°30` S, 49°45`W). Two methods were tested in this classification: object-based and pixel-based classification. A pixel-based image analysis supervised classification was performed using Maximum Likelihood algorithm, separating two classes of features, wetlands and non-wetlands. All Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) image process used ENVI 4.7 and ENVI EX software. The Catarinense Plateau wetlands occur in random distribution, with small and medium sized extensions, usually between 0.5 - 5 ha. The reference intersection values are bigger in pixel-based classification, however the object-oriented classification shows better the shape correlation to reference base polygons. Wetland delimitation maps are important factors to improve the conservation and good management of the ecosystem. More studies are needed so that the delimitation and extent of these wetlands can be accurately mapped. * Corresponding author. This is useful to know for communication with the appropriate person in cases with more than one author. 1. INTRODUCTION Wetlands embody a variety of ecosystems, such as swamp, mire, marsh, morass, slough, permanently or temporarily inundated, with static or flowing water, fresh, brackish or salt (Ramsar, 1971). This environment presents a high richness of botanical species, acting as an interface between earthly and aquatic systems that provides a rich biodiversity (Pollock et al., 1998), including endangered endemic species (Barbier et al., 1994). Catarinense Plateau presents these typical wetlands, occurring in altitudes between 800 to 1600m, and they are yet scarcely researched about their occurrence and spatial borders, as well as in their diversity and ecological importance. The wetlands in this region are called ‘banhados’, a word that comes from Spanish (Burger, 2000). They occur in not very large extensions, but repeatedly and intermingled with altitude meadows. Characterized as swampy (Almeida et al., 2007), occurring in flowing water (open) and static water (isolated) systems. The lacking of notice about wetland environment at Brazilian level, plus its botanical and ecological knowing incipience, emphasizes its problematic preservation situation. By Environmental Laws point of view you can observe that Brazilian legislation doesn’t recognize this specific ecosystem as a protected one. And starting from the point that being legally established is a primordial factor to preserve biological communities (although this single fact by itself doesn´t ensures the preservation of the habitats) leads us to think that wetlands of Catarinense Plateau may be considered totally subjected to changes of its natural condition, since there are no legal mechanisms to protect it. In this context, mapping the vegetation of wetlands zones appears as an important tool to a good management of earth resources and to preserve flora and fauna of these wet areas (Adam et al., 2010). According to Ramsar Convention – the only global environment study agreementabout conservation of this particular standard ecosystem, the wetlands – the delimitation of these areas and its map registration later, are preliminary factors to their conservation (Ramsar, 1971). Remote sensing by satellite images presents many advantages in monitoring wetlands and it may be used in all kinds of these zones (Ozesmi and Bauer, 2002). Since the use of Remote sensing techniques enlarge the mapping alternatives, through a time waste reduction to perform observations of density and frequency of samples. In addition the segmentation/object- oriented classification showed to be an ideal technique to classify isolated wetlands (Frohn et al. 2009). Nevertheless, it’s important to establish a specific classification routine in order to extract usefull ecological information (Tuxen et al., 201 approach1). Also accuracy is needed, since wetlands are not easily detectable due to herbaceous wetland vegetation Proceedings of the 4th GEOBIA, May 7-9, 2012 - Rio de Janeiro - Brazil. p.292 292