Abstract
The objective of this study was to delineate forest patches in the cities around the Geum-buk mountains at the north of the Geum River using multiplesatellite remote sensing data. Landsat visible and near-infrared satellite images obtained at multiple dates in the growing season were used to create a forest distribution map. Fragstats 3.3 was used to get the landscape indices delineating the distribution of forest patches. Additional ground truth data was used to assess the accuracy of the classification. Factor analysis was used to get the 26 landscape indices clustered into 4 factors. Factor I was labeled as' size of forest patches', factor II as 'fragmentation of forest patches', factor III as 'shape of forest patches', and factor IV as 'complexity of forest patches'. Factor I described large patches and their core area, while others did small patches and their shape and complexity. Cities including Cheonan, Gongju, Cheongyang, and Boryeong near the main ridge of the Geumbuk Mtns. had a small number of large-sized forest patches. However, cities including Taean, Seosan, Dangjin, Hongseong near the ridge of the western Geumbuk Mtns. had a large number of small-sized forest patches. Finally, this study showed that the region near the coast line in Chung-nam province has various types of forest patches having an irregular forest edge due to the elevation and slope lower than the one of the region far from the coast line which is near the ridge of the Geum-buk Mountains. Remote sensing data were useful to understand the distribution of forest patches, and landscape indices could be keys to delineate the relationship between forest patches. And the factor analysis, which simplified 26 landscape indices into 4 landscape patterns allowed us to understand the distribution and relationship of forest patches in an easy way.
webmaster
