A GEOBIA framework for the implementation of national and international forest definitions using very high spatial resolution optical satellite data

Abstract

In recent decades, there is an increasing need for harmonised and accurate information on the status and extent of forests. However, delineating the extent of forest areas is a complex task, since the existence of more than 100 definitions of forest worldwide causes considerable discrepancies in forested area estimates. The aim of this work was to examine the potential of geographic object based image analysis (GEOBIA) and very high spatial resolution imagery to discriminate forest areas following two different definitions of forest in northern Greece. In particular, we examined the definition of forest under the Greek law as well as the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation definition. Our findings suggest that the developed GEOBIA approach not only performed remarkably well for the discrimination of forest areas but also allowed to estimate rapidly and reliably forest extents when the two aforementioned forest definitions were employed.