An integrated classification of grassland in largescale based on MODIS EVI and multisource data

The main grassland types in China were classified by using the integrating method with MODIS EVI and multisource data of environmental factors in this study. Based on the classification system of the first national grassland survey, this study established a new grassland classification system, in which the natural grassland types in China were classified into 9 types. The distribution areas of grassland in China were divided into four grassland regions by climatic distribution zones, and the grassland types were identified for each grassland region. The extracting rules of grassland types was proposed by quantified characteristics of each grassland via EVI, DEM, precipitation, accumulated temperature, and moisture index data. The grassland types in each grassland region were classified by the extracting rules, and then the grassland classification system for China was constructed by merging each grassland region. The precision of classification was tested by confusion matrix and was 96.19%.The grassland classification showed the actual distribution of the main grassland types in China.