Forest Dragon 2: Final results of the European partners

Abstract

The European contribution to the Forest DRAGON 2 focused on the evaluation of multi-temporal, multi- sensor and multi-scale Earth Observation images and data products within the vegetation ecosystem of Northeast China. The forest growing stock volume (GSV) map produced with ERS-1/2 coherence images for 1995-1998 and two GSV maps produced from Envisat ASAR ScanSAR data for 2005 and 2010 were inter-compared with respect to several datasets (in situ, EO images and EO data products) to assess the plausibility of the GSV estimates, the contribution to land cover mapping and the dynamics over time. For this purpose, a multi-source database was set up including in situ data and EO data products. Land use / land cover (LULC) datasets identified mis-classification of GSV in the ERS dataset primarily for cropland. An a posteriori correction of the GSV resulted in an increase of overall accuracy up to 7%. LULC products can also support the fine tuning of the algorithm to estimate GSV from ASAR data particularly in transition regions between forest and shrubland. The ASAR-based GSV estimates were consistent and highlighted areas of change. From the two ASAR maps, slight loss of volume from 2005 to 2010 was estimated.