Lauri Korhonen, Inka Pippuri, Petteri Packalén, Ville Heikkinen, Matti Maltamo, Juho Heikkilä. (2013). Detection of the need for seedling stand tending using high-resolution remote sensing data. Silva Fennica vol. 47 no. 2 article id 952. https://doi.org/10.14214/sf.952

Keywords: forest management; airborne laser scanning; logistic regression; seedling stand; tending; support vector machine

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Seedling stands are problematic in airborne laser scanning (ALS) based stand level forest management inventories, as the stem density and species proportions are difficult to estimate accurately using only remotely sensed data. Thus the seedling stands must still be checked in the field, which results in an increase in costs. In this study we tested an approach where ALS data and aerial images are used to directly classify the seedling stands into two categories: those that involve tending within the next five years and those which involve no tending. Standard ALS-based height and density features, together with texture and spectral features calculated from aerial images, were used as inputs to two classifiers: logistic regression and the support vector machine (SVM). The classifiers were trained using 208 seedling plots whose tending need was estimated by a local forestry expert. The classification was validated on 68 separate seedling stands. In the training data, the logistic model’s kappa coefficient was 0.55 and overall accuracy (OA) 77%. The SVM did slightly better with a kappa = 0.71 and an OA = 86%. In the stand level validation data, the performance decreased for both the logistic model (kappa = 0.38, OA = 71%) and the SVM (kappa = 0.37, OA = 72%). Thus our approach cannot totally replace the field checks. However, in considering the stands where the logistic model predictions had high reliability, the number of misclassifications reduced drastically. The SVM however, was not as good at recognizing reliable cases.

Korhonen, School of Forest Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 111, FI-80101 Joensuu, Finland E-mail: lauri.korhonen@uef.fi
Pippuri, School of Forest Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 111, FI-80101 Joensuu, Finland E-mail: inka.pippuri@uef.fi
Packalén, School of Forest Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 111, FI-80101 Joensuu, Finland E-mail: petteri.packalen@uef.fi
Heikkinen, School of Computing, University of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 111, FI-80101 Joensuu, Finland E-mail: ville.heikkinen@uef.fi
Maltamo, School of Forest Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 111, FI-80101 Joensuu, Finland E-mail: matti.maltamo@uef.fi
Heikkilä, Finnish Forest Centre, Public Services, Maistraatinportti 4 A, FI-00240 Helsinki, Finland E-mail: juho.heikkila@metsakeskus.fi

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