Assessment of vegetation cover on abandoned agricultural forest-steppe lands using multivariate analysis of their spectral response

Abstract

It is crucial for all the regions including the forest-steppe zone that the vegetation cover on abandoned agricultural lands is thoroughly studied. This paper reviews some challenges of abandoned agricultural lands, which can be used as the basis for the real-time analysis of vegetation dynamics. The study aims to assess the capacity of automatic identification of forest stands established on abandoned agricultural lands through multivariate analysis of their spectral response. Based on the analysis of spectral reflective characteristics of abandoned agricultural lands from Landsat OLI data, it was found out that the reflective features of abandoned areas with deciduous, coniferous, and mixed forest stands differ significantly in the infrared band. It has been proposed to recognize abandoned agricultural lands with deciduous and coniferous forest stands through discriminant analysis of their reflective characteristics. It has been proved that reflectance in the red and infrared bands can be used to automatically detect abandoned agricultural lands with deciduous and coniferous stands. It is more challenging to identify abandoned areas with mixed forest stands.