Canopy Cover Predictions using Ground Observations and Remotely Sensed Data

Maps of vegetation status are needed at many scales, from the field level to monitor ecosystem condition to the global level to understand the carbon cycle. Status is quantified by such variables as leaf area index, biomass, and fraction of canopy cover. Current methods of predicting vegetation variables use remote sensing data to provide a spatially exhaustive data source. In a study in western Montana, several hundred ground observations made by the US Forest Service on tenth-acre conifer plots were used to develop aspatial regression and geostatistical prediction models. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) values from Landsat Thematic Mapper images were used as ancillary data. These models were then used to predict canopy cover at unsampled locations in a 97 square kilometer region on the boundary of the Flathead National Forest and the Bob Marshall Wilderness. Independent data from two dates six years apart were used for validation. Given the assumption that actual canopy cover remained relatively unchanged within this time period, partial validation can be achieved by measuring the correspondence of the two maps. This criterion results in ranking the aspatial regression maps as less accurate than the geostatistically generated maps. The geostatistical approach emphasizes ground measurements more heavily than does aspatid regression. Geostatistical simulations of canopy cover also provide a means of describing uncertainty about the patterns of canopy cover.