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http://dx.doi.org/10.7780/kjrs.2019.35.2.3

Classification of Forest Vertical Structure Using Machine Learning Analysis  

Kwon, Soo-Kyung (Department of Geoinformatics, University of Seoul)
Lee, Yong-Suk (Department of Geoinformatics, University of Seoul)
Kim, Dae-Seong (Department of Geoinformatics, University of Seoul)
Jung, Hyung-Sup (Department of Geoinformatics, University of Seoul)
Publication Information
Korean Journal of Remote Sensing / v.35, no.2, 2019 , pp. 229-239 More about this Journal
Abstract
All vegetation colonies have layered structure. This layer is called 'forest vertical structure.' Nowadays it is considered as an important indicator to estimate forest's vital condition, diversity and environmental effect of forest. So forest vertical structure should be surveyed. However, vertical structure is a kind of inner structure, so forest surveys are generally conducted through field surveys, a traditional forest inventory method which costs plenty of time and budget. Therefore, in this study, we propose a useful method to classify the vertical structure of forests using remote sensing aerial photographs and machine learning capable of mass data mining in order to reduce time and budget for forest vertical structure investigation. We classified it as SVM (Support Vector Machine) using RGB airborne photos and LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) DSM (Digital Surface Model) DTM (Digital Terrain Model). Accuracy based on pixel count is 66.22% when compared to field survey results. It is concluded that classification accuracy of layer classification is relatively high for single-layer and multi-layer classification, but it was concluded that it is difficult in multi-layer classification. The results of this study are expected to further develop the field of machine learning research on vegetation structure by collecting various vegetation data and image data in the future.
Keywords
forest verticalstructure; forest inventory; forestry; LiDAR; airborne photo; machine learning; SVM(Support Vector Machine);
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Times Cited By KSCI : 2  (Citation Analysis)
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