TIMBER AGE ESTIMATION OF COMMERCIAL TIMBERLAND IN TENNESSEE, USA USING REMOTELY SENSED DATA

In the commercially managed timber lands, the information such as height, age, stand density, canopy closure and leaf area index need to be collected periodically. Stand volume is the most fundamental information in the valuation of timber, however, stand age information is the primary element of forest inventory and these two are highly correlated. Conventional method of collecting stand age information by field surveys such as ring count method is accurate; however, it is expensive, labor-intensive and time consuming. In the present study it was aimed to collect stand age information using modem techniques in a commercially managed timberland situated in Tennessee, USA. The Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM), Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+) of three different periods, Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), National elevation dataset (NED) and field inventory data were used. Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and Tasselled Cap (TC) transformation techniques were applied on the TM and ETM+ data. The regression analysis was carried out to identify the correlation between stand age and NDVI, TC. In the present study about 2,469 datasets were analyzed. The $R^{2}$ value for stand age estimation was 0.713. The NDVI, TC2 and TC3 were found to produce accurate timber age information.