Remote Sensing is a technology that can offer data and information across an extremely broad range of topics, making it an invaluable tool to researchers, scientists, and many people across the world today. One such invaluable use of remote sensing is in the application of forestry. In the past, scientists used to collect data on the ground from a relatively small section of a forest, and assume that their data would be an accurate representation of the forest as a whole. Today, studying forests hands-on is mostly done as ground truthing for data originally collected by remote sensing. There is a broad range of applications in forestry that remote sensing is incredibly helpful with. This paper will look at the application of remote sensing in estimating forest composition, detecting clear-cutting, the detection of disease, and its use in estimating leaf area index.
The ability to determine forest species composition is an important aspect in forest management. Species composition can give scientists an idea of whether a forest is old-growth or second-growth, and can help them to determine what kind of ecosystem exists within an area and what other types of animal or plant species can be expected to be found within a particular forest. Tree species information is also critical when determining biophysical properties of trees, such as stem volume and biomass. This information on tree species is very important to decision makers, whose focus is often centered on regeneration choices and harvest scheduling (Ørka, Dalponte, Gobakken, Næsset, & Ene, 2013). Tree species also influences habitat quality and biodiversity, so it is very helpful to be able to determine the composition of a forest when studying habitats or trying to maint...
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To improve my procedure, there are plenty of different ways to do so now that I have an increased experience with working with a large selection of trees. A major flaw with my research is by having to record the different types of trees in the zone, mainly height. Therefore, having to examine trees that vary greatly from each other. By having trees that represented the whole zone, instead of part of a zone, it would give more accurate information. To achieve even more accurate information, looking at the largest leaf for each tree would give a better
Forests cover 31% of the land area on our planet. They produce vital oxygen and provide homes for people and wildlife. Many of the world’s most threatened and endangered animals live in forests, and 1.6 billion people rely on benefits forests offer, including food, fresh water, clothing, traditional medicine and shelter (drug war facts, Page 1).
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The Western forests are drastically different from what they were like before the European settlement. In pre-European time, the forests were open and park-like with only 25-35 trees per acre surrounded by areas of open grasslands. One could easily ride a horse through the spacious forest. This, however, is not possible in today's forests. Today, for example the Ponderosa pine forests, have over 500 trees per acre, creating thick dense areas of trees, brush, and bushes (President Bush, 4). The pre-European forests were subject to frequent low inte...
Purpose: The purpose of this lab is to investigate the various components of different ecosystems in a smaller representation and study the conditions required for the ecosystem’s sustainability as well as the connections between
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More effective methods for increase accuracy of assessment and analysis of remotely sensed data are applying models which can combine in data layers. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are used to combine the layers of data in the modeling of drought. Recently, space technologies, such RS and GIS, and the numerical modeling techniques have been developed as powerful tools for the ecological assessment of environment (Krivtsov, 2004; MacMillan et al., 2004; Store and Jokimäki, 2003). Utilizing these technologies not only supply a platform to support multi-level and hierarchically integrated analysis on resource and environment, but also integrate the obtained information in a comparative theoretical ecosystem analysis. Meanwhile, Plummer (2000) argued that perspectives of combining ecological models and remotely sensed data would focus on the estimation of accuracy, the issues of spatial and temporal scale, and long-term comprehensive datasets.
Since forest management decisions are not only based on present or current resources but also on future conditions, models are needed to describe the forest dynamics. Sustainable forest management decisions are based on resource conditions from both the present and future
Sensors abroad satellites in space, record the amount of electromagnetic energy reflected from various objects on the earth’s surface at various wavelengths. From the spectral response patterns, information about the objects is derived. Through the analysis of remotely sensed data for different epochs change detection is possible. With time change analysis, monitoring of forest destruction can be done. The knowledge acquired from this information forms a basis for decision making in efforts to address the deforestation. It is with this mind that this project was carried out to establish factual information on the state of Nyambene Hills forest, in Meru North district in Meru County whose reported danger of extinction has attracted from the public and many environmental organizations considering the value of these forests resources.