Mapping Kudzu in Central and Eastern KY Using Remote Sensing

Kudzu is a very fast-growing invasive vine in the United States that smothers surrounding vegetation by blocking sunlight. This research is on mapping Kudzu and differentiating it from its surrounding vegetation based on its spectral characteristics in Central and Eastern Kentucky. The two areas of study were in Hestand and Vancleve, KY. After acquiring NAIP aerial imagery of the study areas, unsupervised classification was used to spectrally differentiate Kudzu, then various geospatial analysis techniques were used to study the classification results. This project was done as part of the KentuckyView program.