14.5 Integration of Automatic Stratification into NASS
Operations
As described above, the automated stratification method significantly improves
stratification efficiency, objectivity, and accuracy in intensively cropped areas, and
makes a reduction in labor cost feasible by adopting the automated stratification
method. However, the automated stratification method performed less well in
nonagricultural areas. An intuitive solution is to integrate automated stratification
with the traditional area frame construction process for improving its operational
use. The new integrated operational procedure and its assessment will be presented
in the following subsections.
14.5.1 Ancillary Data for Manual Review and Editing
Process
A variety of additional ancillary data are used in the area frame manual review and
editing procedure of the integration process. Single year CDLs are used to manually
evaluate land cover changes. Landsat 8 satellite imagery acquired during the
Fig. 14.7 Arizona traditional area frame stratification (top left) and automatic area frame stratification (top right). Zooms of the same location based on the traditional stratification (lower left) and
automatic stratification (lower right)
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C. G. Boryan and Z. Yang