Abstract
Aerial photography has been routinely used for several decades by natural resource scientists and managers to map and monitor the condition of forested landscapes. Recently, along with the emergence of concepts in managing forests as ecosystems, has come a significant shift in emphasis from smaller to larger spatial scales and the widespread use of geographic information systems. These developments have precipitated an increasing need for vegetation information derived from other remote sensing imagery, especially digital data acquired from high-elevation aircraft and satellite platforms. This paper introduces fundamental concepts in digital remote sensing and describes numerous applications of the technology. The intent is to provide a balanced, nontechnical view, discussing the shortcomings, successes, and future potential for digital remote sensing of forested ecosystems.
Similar content being viewed by others
Literature Cited
Abuelgasim, A. A., and A. H. Strahler. 1994. Modeling bidirectional radiance measurements collected by the advanced solid-state array spectroradiometer (ASAS) over Oregon transect conifer forests.Remote Sensing of Environment 47:261–275.
Ahern, F. J., R. J. Brown, J. Cihlar, R. Gauthier, J. Murphy, R. A. Neville, and P. M. Teillet. 1987. Radiometric correction of visible and infrared remote sensing data at the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing.International Journal of Remote Sensing 8:1349–1376.
Barrett, E. C., and L. F. Curtis. 1992. Introduction to environmental remote sensing, 3rd ed. Chapman & Hall, London, 426 pp.
Butera, M. K. 1986. A correlation and regression analysis of percent canopy closure versus TMS spectral response for selected forest sine in the San Juan National Forest, Colorado.IEEE Transactions on Geoscience & Remote Sensing 24:122–129.
Chiesa, C. C., and W. A. Tyler. 1994. Beyond cubic convolution: ERIM restoration for remotely-sensed imagery.Earth Observation Magazine 3:40–44.
Chuvieco, E., and R. G. Congalton. 1988. Using cluster analysis to improve the selection of training statistics in classifying remotely sensed data.Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing 54:1275–1281.
Cibula, W. G., and M. O. Nyquist. 1987. Use of topographic and climatological models in a geographic data base to improve Landsat MSS classification for Olympic National Park.Photgrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing 53:67–75.
Cohen, W. B. and T. A. Spies. 1992. Estimating structural attributes of Douglas-fir/western hemlock forest stands from Landsat and SPOT imagery.Remote Sensing of Environment 41:1–17.
Cohen, W. B., T. A. Spies, and G. A. Bradshaw. 1990. Semivariograms of digital imagery for analysis of conifer canopy structure.Remote Sensing of Environment 34:167–178.
Cohen, W. B., T. A. Spies, and M. Fiorella. 1995. Estimating the age and structure of forests in a multiownership landscape of western Oregon, USA.International Journal of Remote Sensing 16:721–746.
Collins, J. B., and Woodcock, C. E. 1994. Change detection using the Gramm-Schmidt transformation applied to mapping forest mortality.Remote Sensing of Environment 50:267–279.
Colwell, J. E. 1974. Vegetation canopy reflectance.Remote Sensing of Environment 3:175–183.
Congalton, R. G. 1991. A review of assessing the accuracy of classifications of remotely sensed data.Remote Sensing of Environment 37:35–46.
Congalton, R. G., K. Green, and J. Teply. 1993. Mapping old growth forests on national forest and park lands in the Pacific Northwest from remotely sensed data.Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing 59:529–535.
Corr, D. G., Taylor, A. M., Cross, A., Hoggs, D. C., Lawrence, D. H., Mason. D. C., and Petrou, M. 1989. Progress in automatic analysis of multi-temporal remotely-sensed data.International Journal of Remote Sensing 10:1175–1195.
Cracknell, A., and L. Hayes. 1991. Introduction to remote sensing. Taylor and Francis, London, Eng. 293 pp.
Crist, E. P., and R. C. Cicone. 1984. A physically-based transformation of thematic mapper data—the TM tasseled cap.IEEE Transactions on Geoscience & Remote Sensing 22:256–263.
Czaplewski, R. L., and G. P. Catts. 1992. Calibration of remotely sensed proportion or area estimates for misclassification error.Remote Sensing of Environment 39:29–43.
Eby, J. R. 1987. The use of sun incidence angle and infrared reflectance levels in mapping old-growth coniferous forests. Proceedings, ASPRS-ACSM fall convention: Prospecting new horizons, ASPRS Technical Paper. Reno, Nevada, 4–9 October, American Society of Photogrammetric & Remote Sensing, Falls Church Virginia, pp. 36–40.
Eby, J. R., and M. C. Snyder. 1990. The status of old growth in western Washington: A Landsat perspective. Report. Washington Department of Wildlife, Olympia, Washington, 34 pp.
EOSAT. 1994. A process of compensation.EOSAT Notes 9:8.
ERDAS. 1993. Earth resource data analysis system, vers. 8.01. ERDAS Inc., Atlanta, Georgia.
Fiorella, M., and W. J. Ripple. 1993a. Determining successional stage of temperate coniferous forests with Landsat satellite data.Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing 59:239–246.
Fiorella, M., and W. J. Ripple. 1993b. Analysis of conifer forest regeneration using Landsat thematic mapper data.Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing 59:1383–1388.
Franklin, S. E., and B. A. Wilson. 1992. A three-stage classifier for remote sensing of mountainous environments.Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing 58:449–454.
Fung, T., and E. LeDrew. 1987. Application of principal components analysis to change detection.Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing 53:1649–1658.
Gong, P. 1993. Change detection using principal component analysis and fuzzy set theory.Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing 19:22–29.
Gopal, S., and C. Woodcock. 1994. Theory and methods for accuracy assessment of thematic maps using fuzzy sets.Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing 60:181–188.
Goward, S. N., D. G. Dye, S. Turner, and J. Yang. 1994. Visiblenear infrared spectral reflectance of landscape components in western Oregon.Remote Sensing of Environment 47:190–203.
Hall, F. G., D. E. Strebel, J. E. Nickeson, and S. J. Goetz. 1991a. Radiometric rectification: Toward a common radiometric response among multidate, multisensor images.Remote Sensing of Environment 35:11–27.
Hall, F. G., D. B. Botkin, D. E. Streble, K. D. Woods, and S. J. Goetz. 1991b. Large-scale patterns of forest succession as determined by remote sensing.Ecology 72:628–640.
Heard, M. I., P. M. Mather, and C. Higgins. 1992. GERES: A prototype expert system for the geometric rectification of remotely-sensed images.International Journal of Remote Sensing 13:3381–3385.
Holbo, H. R., and J. C. Luvall. 1989. Modeling surface temperature distributions in forest landscapes.Remote Sensing of Environment 27:11–24.
Hong, T. H., and A. Rosenfeld. 1984. Compact region extraction using weighted pixel linking in a pyramid.IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence PAMI-6:222–229.
Hord, R. M. 1986. Remote sensing: Methods and applications. John Wiley & Sons, New York, 362 pp.
Isaacson, D. L., D. A. Leckenby, and C. J. Alexander. 1982. The use of large-scale aerial photography for interpreting Landsat digital data in an elk habitat-analysis project.Journal of Applied Photogrammetric Engineering 8:51–57.
Jensen, J. R. 1986. Introductory digital image processing. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 379 pp.
Johnson, L. F., C. A. Hlavka, and D. L. Peterson. 1994. Multivariate analysis of AVIRIS data for canopy biochemical estimation along the Oregon transect.Remote Sensing of Environment 47:216–230.
Kauth, R. J., and G. S. Thomas. 1976. The tasselled cap—a graphic description of the spectral-temporal development of agricultural crops as seen by Landsat. Proceedings, second annual symposium on machine processing of remotely sensed data. Purdue University Laboratory of Applied Remote Sensing, West Lafayette, Indiana. 6 June–2 July, pp. 4B/41–51.
Kauth, R. J., A. P. Pentland, and G. S. Thomas. 1977. Blob: An unsupervised clustering approach to spatial preprocessing of MSS imagery. Proceedings, eleventh international symposium on remote sensing of environment, vol. II. Environmental Research Institute of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 25–29 April.
Kruse, F. A., A. B. Lefkoff, and J. B. Dietz. 1993. Expert systembased mineral mapping in northern Death Valley, California/Nevada, using airborne visible/infrared imaging spectrometer.Remote Sensing of Environment 44:309–336.
Lambin, E. F., and A. H. Strahler. 1994. Change-vector analysis in multitemporal space: A tool to detect and categorize land-cover change processes using high temporal-resolution satellite data.Remote Sensing of Environment 48:231–244.
Law, B. E., and R. H. Waring. 1994. Remote sensing of leaf area index and radiation intercepted by understory vegetation.Ecological Applications 4:272–279.
Li, X., and A. H. Strahler. 1985. Geometric-optical modeling of a conifer forest canopy.IEEE Transactions on Geoscience & Remote Sensing GE-23:705–721.
Lillesand, T. M., and R. W. Kiefer. 1994. Remote sensing and image interpretation, 3rd ed. John Wiley & Sons, New York, 750 pp.
Luvall, J. C., and H. R. Holbo. 1989. Measurements of short term thermal responses of coniferous forest canopies using thermal scanner data.Remote Sensing of Environment 27:1–10.
Luvall, J. C., and H. R. Holbo. 1991. Thermal remote sensing methods in landscape ecology. InEcological Studies Vol. 82, pp. 127–152.
Ma, Z., and R. L. Redmond. 1995. Tau coefficient for accuracy assessment of classification of remote sensing data.Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing 61:435–439.
Malila, W. A. 1980. Change vector analysis: An approach for detecting forest changes with Landsat. Proceedings, sixth annual symposium on machine processing of remotely sensed data. Pages 326–335in P. G. Burroff and D. B. Morrison (eds.), Soil information systems and remote sensing and soil survey. Purdue University Laboratory of Applied Remote Sensing, West Lafayette, Indiana, 3–6 June.
Mather, P. M. 1987. Computer processing of remote sensed images: An introduction. John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, England, 352 pp.
Matson, P., L. Johnson, C. Billow, J. Miller, and R. Pu. 1994. Seasonal patterns and remote spectral estimation of canopy chemistry across the Oregon transect.Ecological Applications 4:280–298.
Michalek, J. L., T. W. Wagner, J. J. Luczkovich, and R. W. Stoffle. 1993. Multispectral change vector analysis for monitoring coastal marine environments.Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing 59:381–384.
Moghaddam, M., S. Durden, and H. Zebker. 1994. Radar measurement of forested areas during OTTER.Remote Sensing of Environment 47:154–166.
Morrison, P. H., D. Klopfer, D. A. Leversee, C. M. Socha, and D. L. Ferber. 1991. Ancient forests in the Pacific Northwest. Analysis and maps of twelve national forests. The Wilderness Society, Washington, DC, 22 pp.
Muchoney, D. M., and B. N. Haack. 1994. Change detection for monitoring forest defoliation.Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing 60:1243–1251.
Mustard, J. F. 1993. Relationships of soil, grass, and bedrock over the Kaweah Serpentine Melange through mixture analysis of AVIRIS data.Remote Sensing of Environment 44:293–308.
Nazif, A. M., and M. D. Levine. 1984. Low level image segmentation: an expert system.IEEE Transactions on Interactions of Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence PAMI-6:555–577.
Nelson, R. F. 1981. A comparison of two methods for classifying forestland.International Journal of Remote Sensing 2:49–60.
Paine, D. P. 1981. Aerial photography and image interpretation for resource management. John Wiley & Sons, New York, 571 pp.
Peddle, D. R., and S. E. Franklin. 1991. Image texture processing and data integration for surface pattern discrimination.Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing 57:413–420.
Perry, C. R., and L. F. Lautenschlager. 1984. Functional equivalence of spectral vegetation indices.Remote Sensing of Environment 14:583–597.
Peterson, D. L., and R. H. Waring. 1994. Overview of the Oregon transect ecosystem research project.Ecological Applications 4:211–225.
Peterson, D. L., W. E. Westman, N. J. Stephenson, V. G. Ambrosia, J. A. Brass, and M. A. Spanner. 1986. Analysis of forest structure using thematic mapper simulator data.IEEE Transactions on Geoscience & Remote Sensing GE-24:113–121.
Peterson, D. L., M. A. Spanner, S. W. Running, and K. B. Teuber. 1987. Relationship of thematic mapper simulator data to leaf area index of temperate coniferous forests.Remote Sensing of Environment 22:323–341.
Richards, J. A. 1984. Thematic mapping from multitemporal image data using principal components transformation.Remote Sensing of Environment 16:35–46.
Richards, J. A. 1993. Remote sensing digital image analysis: An introduction, 2nd ed. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 340 pp.
Ripple, W. J. 1994. Determining coniferous forest cover and forest fragmentation with NOAA-9 advanced very high resolution radiometer data.Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing 60:533–540.
Ripple, W. J., S. Wang, D. L. Isaacson, and D. P. Paine. 1991. A preliminary comparison of Landsat thematic mapper and SPOT-1 HRV multispectral data for estimating coniferous forest volume.International Journal of Remote Sensing 12:1971–1977.
Roberts, D. A., M. O. Smith, and J. B. Adams. 1993. Green vegetation, nonphotosynthetic vegetation, and soils in AVIRIS.Remote Sensing of Environment 44:255–269.
Running, S. W., D. L. Peterson, M. A. Spanner, and K. B. Teuber. 1986. Remote sensing of coniferous forest leaf area.Ecology 67:273–276.
Sader, S. A. 1986. Analysis of effective radiant temperatures in a Pacific Northwest forest using thermal infrared multispectral scanner data.Remote Sensing of Environment 19:105–115.
Sader, S. A., and J. C. Winne. 1992. RGB-NDVI colour composites for visualizing forest change dynamics.International Journal of Remote Sensing 13:3055–3067.
Singh, A. 1986. Change detection in the tropical forest environment of northeastern India using Lansat. Pages 237–254in M. J. Eden and J. T. Parry (eds.), Remote sensing and tropical land management. John Wiley & Sons, New York.
Skole, D., and Tucker, C. 1993. Tropical deforestation and habitat fragmentation in the Amazon: Satellite data from 1978 to 1988.Science 260:1905–1910.
Smith, M. O., S. L. Ustin, J. B. Adams, and A. R. Gillespie. 1990a. Vegetation in deserts: I. A regional measure of abundance from multispectral images.Remote Sensing of Environment 31:1–26.
Smith, M. O., S. L. Ustin, J. B. Adams, and A. R. Gillespie. 1990b. Vegetation in deserts: II. Environmental influences on regional abundance.Remote Sensing of Environment 31:27–52.
Spanner, M. A., W. Acevedo, K. W. Teuber, S. W. Running, D. L. Peterson, D. H. Card, and D. A. Mouat. 1984. Remote sensing of the leaf area index of temperate coniferous forests. Proceedings, tenth international symposium on machine processing of remotely sensed data. Pages 362–369in M. M. Klepfer and D. B. Morrison (eds.), Thematic mapper data and geographic information systems. Purdue University Laboratory of Applied Remote Sensing, West Lafayette, Indiana, 12–14 June, pp. 362–369.
Spanner, M. A., L. L. Pierce, S. W. Running, and D. L. Peterson. 1990. The seasonality of AVHRR data of temperate coniferous forests: relationship with leaf area index.Remote Sensing of Environment 33:97–112.
Spies, T. A., W. J. Ripple, and G. A. Bradshaw. 1994. Dynamics and pattern of a managed coniferous forest landscape.Ecological Applications 4:555–568.
Strahler, A. H. 1981. Stratification of natural vegetation for forest and rangeland inventory using Landsat digital imagery and collateral data.International Journal of Remote Sensing 2:15–41.
Strahler, A. H., C. E. Woodcock, and J. A. Smith. 1986. On the nature of models in remote sensing.Remote Sensing of Environment 20:121–139.
Strahler, A. H., Y. Wu, and J. Franklin. 1988. Remote estimation of tree size and density from satellite imagery by inversion of a geometric-optical canopy model. Proceedings, twenty-second international symposium of remote sensing of environment. Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, 20–26 October.
Teillet, P. M., B. Guindon, and D. G. Goodenough. 1982. On the slope-aspect correction of multispectral scanner data.Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing 8:84–106.
Townshend, J. R., C. O. Justice, C. Gurney, and J. McManus. 1992. The impact of misregistration on change detection.IEEE Transactions on Geoscience & Remote Sensing 30:1054–1060.
Tucker, C. J. 1979. Red and photographic infrared linear combinations for monitoring vegetation.Remote Sensing of Environment 8:127–150.
Vane, G., and A. F. Goetz. 1993. Terrestrial imaging spectrometry: Current status, future trends.Remote Sensing of Environment 44:117–126.
Vogelmann, J. E., and B. N. Rock. 1986. Assessing forest decline in coniferous forests of Vermont using NS-001 thematic mapper simulator data.International Journal of Remote Sensing 7:1301–1321.
Walsh, S. J. 1980. Coniferous tree species mapping using Landsat data.Remote Sensing of Environment 9:11–26.
Walsh, S. J. 1987. Variability of Landsat MSS spectral response of forests in relation to stand and site characteristics.International Journal of Remote Sensing 8:1289–1299.
Woodcock, C., J. Collins, S. Gopal, V. Jakabhazy, X. Li, S. Macomber, S. Ryherd, Y. Wu, V. J. Harward, J. Levitan, and R. Warbington. 1994. Mapping forest vegetation using Landsat TM imagery and a canopy reflectance model.Remote Sensing of Environment 50:240–254.
Woodcock, C. E., and V. J. Harward. 1992. Nested-hierarchical scene models and image segmentation.International Journal of Remote Sensing 13:3167–3187.
Woodcock, C. E., and A. H. Strahler. 1987. The factor of scale in remote sensing.Remote Sensing of Environment 21:311–332.
Wu, Y., and A. H. Strahler. 1994. Remote estimation of crown size, stand density, and biomass on the Oregon transect.Ecological Applications 4:299–312.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Cohen, W.B., Kushla, J.D., Ripple, W.J. et al. An introduction to digital methods in remote sensing of forested ecosystems: Focus on the Pacific Northwest, USA. Environmental Management 20, 421–435 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01203849
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01203849