Abstract
A map of European forests has been produced for the
pan-European area. In the database, the forest area
within each NOAA-AVHRR (National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration-Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer)
pixel has been estimated. A new approach, presented in
another paper at this conference was utilized in the
estimation procedure. The method takes into account both
the uncertainty of a pixel to belong to a specific ground
class and the mixed ground contents of a spectral class.
The image interpretation was carried out using an AVHRR
image mosaic compiled from the red and near infra-red
channels, for the entire pan-European area. This mosaic
was composited from forty-nine AVHRR images acquired in
late summer 1996. Atmospheric correction of the data was
performed to the individual images using the SMAC
(Simplified Method for Atmospheric Corrections)
procedure. An additional BRDF (Bi-directional Reflectance
Distribution Function) correction was made to each image.
The reflectance mosaic was computed using the weighted
mean of the reflectance values of cloud-free pixels. The
CORINE Land Cover database was used to represent the
ground information.
This study fulfils some of the key objectives of the FIRS
(Forest Information from Remote Sensing) Project of the
Space Applications Institute (SAI) at the Joint Research
Centre, Ispra, of the European Commission. In particular,
the work represents an attempt to improve upon the
reliability of existing mapped information for Europe.
Firstly, the method results in a continuous variable of
forest probability representing an estimate of forest
area for each pixel. Secondly, the likelihood of
under-estimating the forest cover in areas where the
forest is fragmented or over-estimating if the cover is
uniform and homogeneous, is reduced. Thirdly, the
resulting image database could also be utilized to
estimate other forest characteristics, if relevant ground
data are available.
Forest area statistics derived from the probability
database for Italy and France were compared with area
estimates taken from EUROSTAT's (Statistical Office of
the European Communities) database for 1995. The
correlation coefficients were found to be 0.89 and 0.85
for Italy and France respectively.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Conference on remote sensing and forest monitoring |
| Subtitle of host publication | Proceedings |
| Publisher | European Commission EC |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Publication status | Published - 1999 |
| MoE publication type | Not Eligible |
| Event | IUFRO Conference on Remote Sensing and Forest Monitoring - Rogow, Poland Duration: 1 Jun 1999 → 3 Jun 1999 |
Conference
| Conference | IUFRO Conference on Remote Sensing and Forest Monitoring |
|---|---|
| Country/Territory | Poland |
| City | Rogow |
| Period | 1/06/99 → 3/06/99 |