Multi-Scale Remote Sensing-Assisted Forest Inventory: A Glimpse of the State-of-the-Art and Future Prospects

Hooman Latifi,Marco Heurich

doi:10.3390/rs11111260

Abstract

Advances in remote inventory and analysis of forest resources during the last decade have reached a level to be now considered as a crucial complement, if not a surrogate, to the long-existing field-based methods. This is mostly reflected in not only the use of multiple-band new active and passive remote sensing data for forest inventory, but also in the methodic and algorithmic developments and/or adoptions that aim at maximizing the predictive or calibration performances, thereby minimizing both random and systematic errors, in particular for multi-scale spatial domains. With this in mind, this editorial note wraps up the recently-published Remote Sensing special issue “Remote Sensing-Based Forest Inventories from Landscape to Global Scale”, which hosted a set of state-of-the-art experiments on remotely sensed inventory of forest resources conducted by a number of prominent researchers worldwide.

Highlights

Forest inventory practices, in particular on the classical basis of design-based surveys, have been long considered as essential sources of quantitative and qualitative information for current forest resources management
This is mostly reflected in the use of multiple-band new active and passive remote sensing data for forest inventory, and in the methodic and algorithmic developments and/or adoptions that aim at maximizing the predictive or calibration performances, thereby minimizing both random and systematic errors, in particular for multi-scale spatial domains. This editorial note wraps up the recently-published Remote Sensing special issue “Remote Sensing-Based Forest Inventories from Landscape to Global Scale”, which hosted a set of state-of-the-art experiments on remotely sensed inventory of forest resources conducted by a number of prominent researchers worldwide
All papers dealt with the three general topics of “remote sensing”, “forest inventory” and “scale”, though the topics are occasionally more focused in the individual contributions

Summary

Introduction

In particular on the classical basis of design-based surveys, have been long considered as essential sources of quantitative and qualitative information for current forest resources management. This is mostly reflected in the use of multiple-band new active and passive remote sensing data for forest inventory, and in the methodic and algorithmic developments and/or adoptions that aim at maximizing the predictive or calibration performances, thereby minimizing both random and systematic errors, in particular for multi-scale spatial domains.

Results

Conclusion