Journal Article

Tree Species (Genera) Identification with GF-1 Time-Series in A Forested Landscape, Northeast China

Zhang, Zhaoying, Tian, Qingjiu, Chang, Chung-Te, Yue, Jibo, Xu, Kaijian

2020

Overview

Forests are the most important component of terrestrial ecosystem; the accurate mapping of tree species is helpful for the management of forestry resources. Moderate- and high-resolution multispectral images have been commonly utilized to identify regional tree species in forest ecosystem, but the accuracy of recognition is still unsatisfactory. To enhance the forest mapping accuracy, this study integrated the land surface phenological metrics and text features of forest canopy on tree species identification based on Gaofen-1 (GF-1) wide field of view (WFV) and time-series images (36 10-day NDVI data), conducted at a forested landscape in Harqin Banner, Northeast China in 2017. The dominant tree species include Pinus tabulaeformis, Larix gmelinii, Populus davidiana, Betula platyphylla, and Quercus mongolica in the study region. The result of forest mapping derived from a 10-day dataset was also compared with the outcome based upon a commonly utilized 30-day dataset in tree species identification. The results indicate that tree species identification accuracy is significantly (p < 0.05) improved with higher temporal resolution (10-day, 79.4%) of images than commonly used monthly data (30-day, 76.14%), and the accuracy can be further increased to 85.13% with a combination of the information derived from principal component analysis (PCA) transformation, phenological metrics (standing for the information of growing season) and texture features. The integration of higher dimensional NDVI data, vegetation growth dynamics and feature of canopy simultaneously will be beneficial to map tree species at the landscape scale.

• Publisher: MDPI AG
• Subject: Accuracy / Betula pendula subsp. mandshurica / Canopies / China / data collection / Datasets / Dominant species / Field of view / forest canopy / Forest ecosystems / Forest management / Forestry / Forests / Gaofen-1 / Global positioning systems / GPS / Growing season / Identification / Image resolution / Landscape / landscapes / Larix gmelinii / Mapping / multispectral imagery / NDVI time series / normalized difference vegetation index / phenological metrics / phenology / Pinus tabuliformis / Plant species / Populus / principal component analysis / Principal components analysis / Quercus mongolica / Rainforests / remote sensing / Resource management / species identification / Studies / Temporal resolution / Terrestrial ecosystems / texture / Time series / time series analysis / Trees / trees species identification / Vegetation / Vegetation growth