Evaluation of Satellite Remote Sensing Imagery to Update Digital Data of Relatively Large-Scale Forest Stand Map

초록

Forest stand map has been a main tool for managing forest resources in Korea as well as the other countries where the forest is under the intensive uses. Forests in Korea have been vulnerable to several factors of land developments and environmental perturbations. Production of forest stand map is a relatively difficult and needs a lot of time and efforts. Although aerial photography is still a primary source to produce the high quality forest stand map, this method requires excessive amounts of costs and time. The objective of this paper is to assess the potential of several types of satellite imagery for updating a vector-based digital map of forest stands. Along with several earth observing satellites, including the high-resolution commercial satellite, remote sensing technology is getting more attention for the extraction of the latest information from forests. Two types of satellite images (Landsat TM and KOMPSAT EOC) were tested to detect and update the changes in the forest stand maps. Although the satellite images could not match with the detail and accuracy of aerialphoto-derived information, they were still able to detect and update the most recent and, perhaps, the most important changes in the forest stand maps.