Land Use and Land Cover Photointerpretation

Abstract

AbstractMost national forest inventories use remote sensing data, mainly aerial photos and orthophotos, for the preliminary classification of land use and cover in the inventory points, also for the purpose of estimating the forest area. The classification of land use and land cover during the first phase of the third Italian forest inventory INFC2015 was carried out by interpreting 4-band digital orthophotos (RGB colors and near infrared) in over 301,000 points located on a grid with quadrangular meshes of 1 km2. The classification system adopted includes three hierarchical levels, of which the first corresponds to the same level of the European CORINE Land Cover system and the subsequent ones aimed at highlighting the classes of inventory interest, for the subsequent stratification of the sample of points to be surveyed on the ground. A rigorous quality control procedure was implemented, during the photointerpretation and its conclusion, in order to assess the accuracy of the classifications and the extent of changes to and from forest land use and land cover.