Abstract
Every vegetation colony has its own vertical structure. Forest vertical structure is considered as an important indicator of a forest's diversity and vitality. The vertical structure of a forest has typically been investigated by field survey, which is the traditional method of forest inventory. However, this method is very time- and cost-consuming due to poor accessibility. Remote sensing data such as satellite imagery, aerial photography, and lidar data can be a viable alternative to the traditional field-based forestry survey. In this study, we classified forest vertical structures from red-green-blue (RGB) aerial orthophotos and lidar data using an artificial neural network (ANN), which is a powerful machine learning technique. The test site was Gongju province in South Korea, which contains single-, double-, and triple-layered forest structures. The performance of the proposed method was evaluated by comparing the results with field survey data. The overall accuracy achieved was about 70%. It means that the proposed approach can classify the forest vertical structures from the aerial orthophotos and lidar data.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Article number | 1046 |
Journal | Applied Sciences (Switzerland) |
Volume | 7 |
Issue number | 10 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 12 Oct 2017 |
Keywords
- ANN (Artificial Neural Network)
- Aerial orthophoto
- Forest inventory
- Forestry vertical structure
- Lidar (light detection and ranging)
- Machine learning
- Stratification