Journal
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF REMOTE SENSING
Volume 56, Issue 1, Pages -Publisher
TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/22797254.2023.2260549
Keywords
forest decline; Landsat time series; random forest; anomaly; Sen's slope; semi-arid
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Detecting forest decline using remote sensing in arid and semi-arid regions is crucial for effective forest management. However, current studies face limitations in detecting forest decline in sparse semi-arid forests. In this study, three Landsat time-series-based approaches were used to distinguish non-declining and declining forest patches in the Zagros forests, with random forest being the most accurate approach. The classification results were unaffected by the Landsat acquisition times, indicating that additional environmental variables may be necessary to compensate for the limitations and challenges in identifying declining forest patches in semi-arid regions.
Detecting forest decline is crucial for effective forest management in arid and semi-arid regions. Remote sensing using satellite image time series is useful for identifying reduced photosynthetic activity caused by defoliation. However, current studies face limitations in detecting forest decline in sparse semi-arid forests. In this study, three Landsat time-series-based approaches were used to distinguish non-declining and declining forest patches in the Zagros forests. The random forest was the most accurate approach, followed by anomaly detection and the Sen's slope approach, with an overall accuracy of 0.75 (kappa = 0.50), 0.65 (kappa = 0.30), and 0.64 (kappa = 0.30), respectively. The classification results were unaffected by the Landsat acquisition times, indicating that rather, environmental variables may have contributed to the separation of declining and non-declining areas and not the remotely sensed spectral signal of the trees. We conclude that identifying declining forest patches in semi-arid regions using Landsat data is challenging. This difficulty arises from weak vegetation signals caused by limited canopy cover before a bright soil background, which makes it challenging to detect modest degradation signals. Additional environmental variables may be necessary to compensate for these limitations.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available