An automated approach for reconstructing recent forest disturbance history using dense Landsat time series stacks

نویسندگان

  • Chengquan Huang
  • Samuel N. Goward
  • Jeffrey G. Masek
  • Nancy Thomas
  • Zhiliang Zhu
  • James E. Vogelmann
چکیده

a r t i c l e i n f o Keywords: Landsat time series stacks (LTSS) Vegetation change tracker (VCT) Forest z-score (FZ) Integrated forest z-score (IFZ) A highly automated algorithm called vegetation change tracker (VCT) has been developed for reconstructing recent forest disturbance history using Landsat time series stacks (LTSS). This algorithm is based on the spectral–temporal properties of land cover and forest change processes, and requires little or no fine tuning for most forests with closed or near close canopy cover. It was found very efficient, taking 2–3 h on average to analyze an LTSS consisting of 12 or more Landsat images using an average desktop PC. This LTSS-VCT approach has been used to examine disturbance patterns with a biennial temporal interval from 1984 to 2006 for many locations across the conterminous U.S. Accuracy assessment over 6 validation sites revealed that overall accuracies of around 80% were achieved for disturbances mapped at individual year level. Average user's and producer's accuracies of the disturbance classes were around 70% and 60% in 5 of the 6 sites, respectively, suggesting that although forest disturbances were typically rare as compared with no-change classes, on average the VCT detected more than half of those disturbances with relatively low levels of false alarms. Field assessment revealed that VCT was able to detect most stand clearing disturbance events, including harvest, fire, and urban development, while some non-stand clearing events such as thinning and selective logging were also mapped in western U.S. The applicability of the LTSS-VCT approach depends on the availability of a temporally adequate supply of Landsat imagery. To ensure that forest disturbance records can be developed continuously in the future, it is necessary to plan and develop observational capabilities today that will allow continuous acquisition of frequent Landsat or Landsat-like observations. Forest disturbance and post-disturbance recovery are key processes in the development of forest ecosystems. The landscape pattern of forest age and structure, for example, is shaped in part by the history of disturbance and recovery processes (Peterken, 2001). Understanding these processes over space and time is also crucial to studies of terrestrial and atmospheric carbon, as they are major processes modulating carbon flux between the biosphere and the atmosphere (Hirsch et al., 2004; Law et al., 2004). While North American forests, especially those in the United States, have been proposed as a net carbon sink (Pacala et al., 2001; Liu et …

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تاریخ انتشار 2009