Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
4459562 | Remote Sensing of Environment | 2011 | 9 Pages |
Reliable assessment of forest resource stock, productivity and harvesting is a commonly agreed objective of environmental monitoring programs. Distinctively, the assessment of wood harvesting has become even more relevant to evaluate the sustainability of forest management and to quantify forest carbon budget. This paper presents the development and testing of procedures for assessing forest harvesting in coppice forests by very high resolution (VHR) satellite imagery. The study area is located in central Italy over approximately 34,000 km2. A set of SPOT5 HRG multispectral images was acquired for the study years (2002–2007). Official administrative statistics of coppice clearcuts were also acquired. More than 9500 clearcuts were mapped and dated by on-screen interpretation of the SPOT5 images. In a subset of the study area various methods for semi-automatic clearcut mapping were tested by pixel- and object-oriented approaches. The following results are presented: (i) clearcut map developed by visual interpretation of the SPOT5 images resulted in high thematic (overall accuracy of 0.99) and geometric (root mean square error of clearcut boundary delineation of 5.3 m) reliability; (ii) object-oriented approach achieved significantly better accuracy than pixel-based methods for semi-automatic classification of the coppice clearcuts; (iii) comparison between mapped clearcut area and official forest harvesting statistics proved a significant underestimation by the latter (65% of the total mapped clearcut area). A sample-based procedure exploiting VHR satellite imagery is finally proposed to correct the official statistics of coppice clearcuts.
Research Highlights► The paper deals with coppice forest clearcut mapping in central Italy. ► Multitemporal SPOT 5 HRG images are exploited. ► Manual photointerpretation and object-oriented classifications are contrasted. ► A sample-based procedure exploiting the use of VHR satellite imagery to correct the official statistics of coppice clearcuts statistics is proposed.