Abstract
It is of great significance to understand the extent and distribution of bamboo for its valuable ecological services and economic benefits. However, it is challenging to map bamboo using remote sensing images over a large area because of the similarity between bamboo and other vegetation types, the availability of clear optical images, huge workload of image processing, and sample collection. In this study, we use the Landsat 8 times series images archive to map bamboo forests in China via the Google Earth engine. Several spectral indices were calculated and used as classification features, including the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), the normalized difference moisture index (NDMI) and textural features of the gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM). We found that the bamboo forest covered an area of 709.92 × 104 hectares, with the provinces of Fujian, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang containing the largest area concentrations. The bamboo forest map was accurate and reliable with an average producer’s accuracy of 89.97%, user’s accuracy of 78.45% and kappa coefficient of 0.7789. In addition, bamboo was mainly distributed in forests with an elevation of 300–1200 m above sea level, average annual precipitation of 1200–1500 mm and average day land surface temperature of 19–25 °C. The NDMI is particularly useful in differentiating bamboo from other vegetation because of the clear difference in canopy moisture content, whilst NDVI and elevation are also helpful to improve the bamboo classification accuracy. The bamboo forest map will be helpful for bamboo forest industry planning and could be used for evaluating the ecological service of the bamboo forest.
Highlights
IntroductionBamboos (family: Poaceae; sub-family: Bambusoideae) are woody grasses found in regions with a tropical and subtropical climate
Bamboos are woody grasses found in regions with a tropical and subtropical climate
The distribution of bamboo is affected by the water and thermal spatial patterns and it is mainly grown in the 16 provinces located to the south of the Qinling–Huaihe line in China
Summary
Bamboos (family: Poaceae; sub-family: Bambusoideae) are woody grasses found in regions with a tropical and subtropical climate. The global bamboo area is about 2200 × 104 hectares, mainly distributed in Asia, Latin America and Africa [1]. China is the leading producer of bamboo in the world. The bamboo forest area in China was 641.2 × 104 hectares according to the China’s Eighth Inventory of Forest Resources (CEIFR) carried out in 2014–2018 [2,3]. More than 500 species of bamboo in 39 genera are found in China, accounting for nearly half of the bamboo species of the world [4]. The distribution of bamboo is affected by the water and thermal spatial patterns and it is mainly grown in the 16 provinces located to the south of the Qinling–Huaihe line in China
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