Mapping forests in monsoon Asia with ALOS PALSAR 50-m mosaic images and MODIS imagery in 2010

• DOI: 10.1038/srep20880
• Publication Date: 2016-02-11T10:25:27Z
• Authors: Yuanwei Qin; Xiangming Xiao; Jinwei Dong; Geli Zhang; Partha Sarathi Roy; Pawan Kumar Joshi; Hammad Gilani; Manchiraju Sri Ra...; Cui Jin; Jie Wang; Yao Zhang; Bangqian Chen; Michael Angelo Me...; Chandrashekhar M....; Rajen Bajgain; Xiangping Li; Shengqi Dai; Ying Hou; Fengfei Xin; Berrien Moore III
• Keywords: Satellite Imagery; 910; Forests; Normalized Difference Vegetation Index; Oceanography; Engineering; Pathology; Climate change; Biomass; Global and Planetary Change; Vegetation Monitoring; Global Analysis of Ecosystem Services and Land Use; Ecology; Geography; Global Forest Mapping; Moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer; Deciduous; Geology; Biodiversity; Remote Sensing in Vegetation Monitoring and Phenology; 04 agricultural and veterinary sciences; Remote sensing; Aerospace engineering; Archaeology; Physical Sciences; Evergreen forest; Medicine; Mapping Forests with Lidar Remote Sensing; Seasons; Biomass Estimation; Algorithms; Vegetation (pathology); Environmental Monitoring; Conservation of Natural Resources; Land cover; Physical geography; Asia; Environmental Engineering; Life on Land; Synthetic aperture radar; 333; Article; Environmental science; Carbon Cycle; Humans; Biology; Tropical Climate; FOS: Environmental engineering; FOS: Earth and related environmental sciences; 15. Life on land; Geomatic Engineering; Evergreen; Satellite; 13. Climate action; FOS: Biological sciences; Environmental Science; Land use; Geographic Information Systems; 0401 agriculture, forestry, and fisheries; Mosaic

AbstractExtensive forest changes have occurred in monsoon Asia, substantially affecting climate, carbon cycle and biodiversity. Accurate forest cover maps at fine spatial resolutions are required to qualify and quantify these effects. In this study, an algorithm was developed to map forests in 2010, with the use of structure and biomass information from the Advanced Land Observation System (ALOS) Phased Array L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) mosaic dataset and the phenological information from MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MOD13Q1 and MOD09A1) products. Our forest map (PALSARMOD50 m F/NF) was assessed through randomly selected ground truth samples from high spatial resolution images and had an overall accuracy of 95%. Total area of forests in monsoon Asia in 2010 was estimated to be ~6.3 × 106 km2. The distribution of evergreen and deciduous forests agreed reasonably well with the median Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) in winter. PALSARMOD50 m F/NF map showed good spatial and areal agreements with selected forest maps generated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA F/NF), European Space Agency (ESA F/NF), Boston University (MCD12Q1 F/NF), Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO FRA) and University of Maryland (Landsat forests), but relatively large differences and uncertainties in tropical forests and evergreen and deciduous forests.