Forest Health Evaluation Based on Big Data Analysis and Multi-source Forest Factors: A Case Study of the Democratic People's Republic of China

Abstract

In recent years, the massive trades between China and its neighboring countries have promoted the development of forestry and economic reforms in many countries, but have also posed a certain threat to forest health, which brought further attention to forest health in the border. This paper takes the cross-border between China, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)and Russia as the research object. Based on multi-source remote sensing data, we collected forest resource survey data in 2000, 2010, and 2020, and use a combination of analytic hierarchy process and entropy method to determine the index weight and evaluate forest health status. As a result, most of the forest health is in the sub-healthy and moderate health range. The extremely unhealthy forests show a downward trend year by year, and most of them are in the areas of human activity. Except for extremely unhealthy and healthy levels, all grades showed a slow upward trend, which also led to a decrease in the proportion of healthy forests year by year. On a national scale, 50%-60% of the regional forest health in China is in a moderately healthy and sub-healthy state, while unhealthy forest areas account for 18%-21%, and are rising constantly year by year at 18.99%, 19.45%, and 20.76% respectively. The healthy and sub-healthy forest areas in Democratic People's Republic of Korea are on a downward trend in 2010. The sub-healthy forest areas have declined significantly compared with 2000 (25.4%, 7.54%). By 2020, the healthy and sub-healthy forests have continued to decrease by 2.47%. The extremely unhealthy and healthy regional forests in Russia's developed slowly. As a whole, the forest health has declined slightly (0.35%) from 2000 to 2020. In the cross-border region between China, DPRK and Russia, the forest health rank of the three countries is Russia>China>DPRK. This result can be promoted for local development and targeted construction. Through sustainable management and protection, it can provide an effective basis for the healthy development of local or regional forests, and can better protect and manage forest resources.