Analysis transformation of forests of the Southern Sakhalin by remote sensing data using geoinformation technologies

Abstract

The forests in the south of Sakhalin are classified as taiga zone and before the begining of large-scale use almost completely covered its territory. The reserves of spruce and fir forests often reached 600 m3 per 1 ha. Only in south-western part of Sakhalin broad-leaved forests grows as an admixture in dark coniferous forests. Above the belt of dark coniferous forests were indigenous forest communities of stone birch and thickets of cedar elfin wood. In the floodplains of many rivers, willow-alder and poplar forests grew with the participation of coniferous and some broad-leaved species. The composition, structure and qualitative state of modern forests, due to long-term industrial logging, large-scale fires and other anthropogenic transformations of natural landscapes, significantly differ from their original, natural state. The article evaluates the current state and structure of the forest cover in southern part of Sakhalin according by data obtained from the Landsat-8 spacecraft, soften-up with using geoinformation technologies. Dark coniferous forests have undergone the greatest changes, reducing the occupied area more than 3 times due to their active exploitation over the past century. Currently zonal dark coniferous forests are mostly replaced to derived stone-birch forests, their share have increased significantly in the forest fund.