Contribution of remote sensing for the analysis and mapping of the Armorican bocage landscape

Abstract

Nowadays, managing landscapes requires reference documents that must be ever more precise and comprehensive. Remote sensing analysis of the Armorican bocage, as dealt with in this paper, answers this kind of requirement. The variety of spatial resolutions as provided by remote sensing data, from satellite images to aerial photographs, allows multiple ways of studying the Bretagne (Brittany) landscape, which range from the mapping of rural landscapes to the characterization of the bocage structure. Resulting from such analyses, and a demand of the landscape planning authorities, this paper offers an approach to the study of the bocage landscape in the Côtes-d’Armor, relying upon a multi-scalar and hierarchical usage of airborne and space data. This approach has also been conceived so as to permit finer analyses in landscape ecology.