Monitoring Forest Degradation in Tropical Regions by Remote Sensing: Some Methodological Issues
Background
This review examines different remote sensing techniques to monitor vegetation cover at a regional scale. The objective was to discuss implications related to monitoring of open forest degradation.
Research Goals & Methods
Techniques include methods to track both spatial and temporal changes in structure and function associated with land use change.
Conclusions & Takeaways
Monitoring of forest degradation requires both repetitive measurements of biophysical attributes and measurement of multiple indicators, such as reflectivity, tranmissivity, and considerations of seasonality. Land surface temperature and understanding of landscape spatial pattern concepts were suggested as highly effective indicators for monitoring of degradation. The author concludes by re-iterating the complexity of degradation detection, the importance of repetitive observations to detect trends, the variability of results given differing indicators, and lastly the importance of integrating of spectral, spatial, and temporal variables to monitor forest degradation.
Reference:
. Monitoring forest degradation in tropical regions by remote sensing: some methodological issues. Global Ecology and Biogeography. 1999;8:191–198. doi:10.1046/j.1365-2699.1999.00123.x.
Affiliation:
- Department of Geography, University of Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium