A multi-scale visualization of accuracies and inaccuracies of a land use map: the case of the Cuitzeo lake basin, Michoacan, Mexico.

Abstract

In the last decade, a methodological breakthrough has permitted the accuracy assessment of regional land use maps of highly dynamic landscapes for sub-tropical countries. This has been achieved on the basis of geostatistics and fuzzy logics, and has led to a detailed database of spatial features derived from the assessed cartography and from the verification material. However, the visualization of these features, of their comparison, and of the spatial distribution of matches and mismatches (with an enormous explanatory potential for decision making based on this cartography), had not been published yet. We present the visualization of correct and erroneous verification points, with fuzzy logic criteria, of the high taxonomy land use map of the Cuitzeo lake watershed, extracted from the 1:250:000 scale National Forest Inventory of year 2000 in Mexico.