ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role of human factors in both symbolic and numerical terrain representations for the interpretation of physiography from remotely sensed images. It presents the photo-interpretation tasks and problems for physiography and landforms, earlier efforts in knowledge-based terrain representation. The chapter explores the knowledge-based physiographic representation including the description of the study area and the implementation of the symbolic and numerical representations. It addresses the human factors and subjectivity in terrain representation and quantification. Physiographic analysis was based on the partition of terrain to physiographic units by taking into account the form and spatial distribution of their component features through fieldwork and visual interpretation of topographic maps and aerial photographs. The use of prior knowledge on a specific geographic region and the use of available maps and bibliographic information can greatly assist terrain interpretation. Human factors are crucial for the fuzzy partition of the domain and for the selection of the membership function types.
