Abstract
This study analyzes the potential of very high resolution (VHR) remote sensing images and extended morphological profiles for mapping Chestnut stands on Tenerife Island (Canary Islands, Spain). Regarding their relevance for ecosystem services in the region (cultural and provisioning services) the public sector demand up-to-date information on chestnut and a simple straight-forward approach is presented in this study. We used two VHR WorldView images (March and May 2015) to cover different phenological phases. Moreover, we included spatial information in the classification process by extended morphological profiles (EMPs). Random forest is used for the classification process and we analyzed the impact of the bi-temporal information as well as of the spatial information on the classification accuracies. The detailed accuracy assessment clearly reveals the benefit of bi-temporal VHR WorldView images and spatial information, derived by EMPs, in terms of the mapping accuracy. The bi-temporal classification outperforms or at least performs equally well when compared to the classification accuracies achieved by the mono-temporal data. The inclusion of spatial information by EMPs further increases the classification accuracy by 5% and reduces the quantity and allocation disagreements on the final map. Overall the new proposed classification strategy proves useful for mapping chestnut stands in a heterogeneous and complex landscape, such as the municipality of La Orotava, Tenerife.
Highlights
Global environmental changes are affecting ecosystems and ecosystem services at a global, regional and local scale
The highest overall accuracy value is provided by the Bi-temporal_EMP (85.26%), whereas the worst result is that of the May image (66.65%)
The use of morphological filters (i.e., extended morphological profiles (EMPs)) improves the classification accuracies, up to 5% when compared to the accuracies achieved on the May image
Summary
Global environmental changes are affecting ecosystems and ecosystem services at a global, regional and local scale. In order to preserve the most important natural habitats of wild fauna and flora in Europe, the European Union member States decided, by Directive 92/43/EEC (known as the Habitats Directive) of May 1992, to create the Natura 2000 network. The fragmented distribution of chestnut trees in the Canary Islands and the importance that this species has had for the Canarian population as a primary cultural and agricultural resource, confer great scientific value on the chestnut trees and grant the need for its conservation. This is of vital importance today, when the decline in rural population is causing its maintenance and exploitation to be abandoned
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