A method for the selection of relevant pattern indices for monitoring of spatial forest cover pattern at a regional scale

De Clercq, Eva M.;Vandemoortele, Femke;De Wulf, Robert R.
(2006) ITC Journal — Vol. 8, n° 2, p. 113-125 (2006)

Files

JAG2006.pdf
  • Restricted Access
  • Adobe PDF
  • 517.84 KB

Details

Authors
  • De Clercq, Eva M.UCLouvain
    Author
  • Vandemoortele, Femke
    Author
  • De Wulf, Robert R.
    Author
Abstract
When signing Agenda 21, several countries agreed to monitor the status of forests to ensure their sustainable use. For reporting on the change in spatial forest cover pattern on a regional scale, pattern metrics are widely used. These indices are not often thoroughly evaluated as to their sensitivity to remote sensing data characteristics. Hence, one would not know whether the change in the metric values was due to actual landscape pattern changes or to characteristic variation of multitemporal remote sensing data. The objective of this study is to empirically test an array of pattern metrics for the monitoring of spatial forest cover. Different user requirements are used as point of departure. This proved to be a straightforward method for selecting relevant pattern indices. We strongly encourage the systematic screening of these indices prior to use in order to get a deeper understanding of the results obtained by them.
Affiliations

Citations

De Clercq, E. M., Vandemoortele, F., & De Wulf, R. R. (2006). A method for the selection of relevant pattern indices for monitoring of spatial forest cover pattern at a regional scale. ITC Journal, 8(2), 113-125. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2005.07.002 (Original work published 2006)