Estimating lake area in an Arctic landscape using linear mixture modelling with AVHRR data

Estimates of lake cover fractions in Arctic tundra landscapes at regional or circumpolar scales are important for modelling carbon, energy and water fluxes. Data from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) are well suited to large-area studies but most lakes in the Arctic tend to be smaller than the size of the AVHRR ground elements (1.1km at nadir). This study demonstrates that lake fractions on the North Slope of Alaska may be estimated withacceptable accuracy using linear mixture modelling and AVHRR data. Landscape stratification, combining multi-date images and the inclusion of a thermal band do not appear to improve model estimates when compared to those based on single-date red and near-infrared endmembers.