Vegetation classification on Prathong Island, Phang Nga, Thailand

Abstract

Habitat mapping as defined by plant communities is a common component of the planning and monitoring for conservation management. This study provided the test of two classifiers for producing the vegetation mapping in a tropical island. The selected area is Prathong Island, Phang Nga Province, Southern part of Thailand. The performance of the support vector machines (SVMs) image classification technique for vegetation classifying was assessed and compared with maximum likelihood classifier (MLC). The vegetation was grouped into 6 categories as Grassland, Beach forest, Mangrove forest, Swamp forest, Sand and Water. The overall and individual classification results were compared to find out the suitable classifier for producing a vegetation map. THEOS multispectral image with 15-m resolution, achieved on 19 th January 2009, was used for this study. The results are useful to identify the boundary of each ecosystem on Prathong Island. Additional research is needed to assess the full potential of both classifiers and THEOS imagery for exploring potential applications on other tropical environments.