Extraction and Verification of the Distribution of Alpine Meadows in Shangri-La Based on Landsat TM Winter Images

The distribution area of the bare ground and alpine meadow was identified by the combinations of slope, aspect and elevation according to the materials that obtained by ground investigation in 1995. The bare soil vegetation index and were calculated to identify bare ground and forests using Landsat TM winter images in 1995. And then the spatial distribution of alpine meadow in Shangri-La in 1995 was obtained. The results showed that the slope of the concentrated distribution area of alpine meadow and bare ground is 9°–37°, the aspects are south, southwest, west, northwest and north, and the elevation is 3900–4631 m; the potential distribution area of the alpine meadow and bare ground in Shangri-La was 1742.89 km² in 1995; the area of the alpine meadow extracted from Landsat TM winter images was 1070.28 km² in Shangri-La. Especially, the extracted area of the alpine meadow in a major distribution region was 512 km², where the area accuracy was 76.10% and the spatial consistency was 90.87% when comparing with the actual distribution. This study shows that it is feasible, especially in the major distribution area, to identify the distribution of alpine meadow using Landsat TM winter images in northwestern Yunnan Province.