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Regional Forest Land Cover Characterisation using Medium Spatial Resolution Satellite Data

  • Chapter
Remote Sensing of Forest Environments

Abstract

Increasing demands on forest resources require comprehensive, consistent and up-to-date information on those resources at spatial scales appropriate for management decision-making and for scientific analysis. While such information can be derived using coarse spatial resolution satellite data (e.g. Tucker et al. 1984; Zhu and Evans 1994; Cihlar et al. 1996; Cihlar et al., Chapter 12), many regional applications require more spatial and thematic details than can be derived by using coarse resolution imagery. High spatial resolution satellite data such as IKONOS and Quick Bird images (Aplin et al. 1997), though usable for deriving detailed forest information (Culvenor, Chapter 9), are currently not feasible for wall-to-wall regional applications because of extremely high data cost, huge data volume, and lack of contiguous coverage over large areas. Forest studies over large areas have often been accomplished using data acquired by intermediate spatial resolution sensor systems, including the Multi-Spectral Scanner (MSS), Thematic Mapper (TM) and the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) of Landsat, the High Resolution Visible (HRV) of the Systeme Pour I’Observation de la Terre (SPOT), and the Linear Image Self-Scanner (LISS) of the Indian Remote Sensing satellite.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. USGS EROS Data Center, Raytheon, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, 57198, USA

    Chengquan Huang, Collin Homer & Limin Yang

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  1. Chengquan Huang
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  2. Collin Homer
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  3. Limin Yang
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Canadian Forest Service (Pacific Forestry Centre), Natural Resources Canada, V8Z 1M5, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

    Michael A. Wulder

  2. Department of Geography, University of Calgary, T2N 1N4, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

    Steven E. Franklin

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Huang, C., Homer, C., Yang, L. (2003). Regional Forest Land Cover Characterisation using Medium Spatial Resolution Satellite Data. In: Wulder, M.A., Franklin, S.E. (eds) Remote Sensing of Forest Environments. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-0306-4_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-0306-4_14

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