Biomass Estimation of Gwangneung Catchment Area with Landsat ETM+ Image

Spatial information on forest biomass is an important factor to evaluate the capability of forest as a carbon sequestrator and is a core independent variable required to drive models which describe ecological processes such as carbon budget, hydrological budget, and energy flow. The objective of this study is to understand the relationship between satellite image and field data, and to quantitatively estimate and map the spatial distribution of forest biomass. Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+) derived vegetation indices and field survey data were applied to estimate the biomass distribution of mountainous forest located in Gwangneung Experimental Forest (230 ha). Field survey data collected from the ground plots were used as the dependent variable, forest biomass, while satellite image reflectance data (Band 1~5 and Band 7), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Soil-Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI), and RVI (Ratio Vegetation Index) were used as the independent variables. The mean and total biomass of Gwangneung catchment area were estimated to be about 229.5 ton/ha and $52.8{\times}10^3$ tons respectively. Regression analysis revealed significant relationships between the measured biomass and Landsat derived variables in both of deciduous forest ($R^2=0.76$, P < 0.05) and coniferous forest ($R^2=0.75$, P < 0.05). However, there still exist many uncertainties in the estimation of forest ecosystem parameters based on vegetation remote sensing. Developing remote sensing techniques with adequate filed survey data over a long period are expected to increase the estimation accuracy of spatial information of the forest ecosystem.