Elsevier

Pedosphere

Volume 20, Issue 3, June 2010, Pages 318-325
Pedosphere

A Model for Estimating Total Forest Coverage with Ground-Based Digital Photography

https://doi.org/10.1016/S1002-0160(10)60020-3Get rights and content

Abstract

Vegetation fractional coverage (VFC) is one of the key indicators of vegetation distribution. In the work a measurement-based model was developed to derive total forest VFC (TG) as well as the VFC of trees (T) and shrub-grasses (G) separately in a subtropical forest area in Nanjing, China. Both upward and downward photographs were taken with a digital camera in 72 quadrats (10 m × 10 m each). Fifteen models were established and validated. Models jointly using both T and G performed better than those using the T and G separately. The best model, TG = T + G − 1.134 × T × G − 0.025 (R2 =0.9115, P < 0.01, root mean squared error = 0.0789), is recommended for application. This model provides a good way to obtain total forest VFC values through taking tree and shrub-grass photos on ground below tree canopy rather than above tree canopy.

References (21)

There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (10)

  • Estimating the effect of Pinus massoniana Lamb plots on soil and water conservation during rainfall events using vegetation fractional coverage

    2013, Catena
    Citation Excerpt :

    Among others, vegetation fractional coverage (VFC) is one of the most commonly used parameters (Casermeiro et al., 2004; Gao et al., 2011; Huang et al., 2010; Villegas et al., 2010; Zhou et al., 2008). VFC could be conveniently measured through many methods (Gu et al., 2010), and were usually reported negatively correlated with soil and water loss (Chen et al., 2011; Dunjó et al., 2004; Pizarro et al., 2006). But positive relationships between VFC and soil and water loss were also increasingly documented (Contreras et al., 2008; Nicolau et al., 1996; Puigdefábregas et al., 1999).

  • Using vegetation indices and texture measures to estimate vegetation fractional coverage (VFC) of planted and natural forests in Nanjing city, China

    2013, Advances in Space Research
    Citation Excerpt :

    Given the VFC values of overstory tree (T) and understory shrub-grass (G), the total VFC value of each plot (TG) was calculated by TG = T + G − 1.134 × T × G − 0.025. A detailed description for VFC measurements and calculations was given by Gu et al. (2010). In the texture calculation, the grey level was set to be 64, the displacement at 1 and the direction at 0°, 45°, 90°, and 135° and then the results for the 4 directions were averaged for further analysis.

  • A hybrid visual estimation method for the collection of ground truth fractional coverage data in a humid tropical environment

    2012, International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation
    Citation Excerpt :

    However, the scale at which observed fc data are collected is often not representative of the imagery's spatial resolution (Atkinson, 2006). Gu et al. (2010) also point out that no ground based method incorporating the multiple levels of vegetation (e.g., canopy and understory) has been reported. Our case study of fc was conducted in the Oriente Region of Ecuador.

View all citing articles on Scopus

Supported by the National Basic Research Program (973 Program) of China (No. 2007CB407206) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 40371053).

View full text