scholarly journals Random Forest Regression Model for Estimation of the Growing Stock Volumes in Georgia, USA, Using Dense Landsat Time Series and FIA Dataset

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 218
Author(s):  
Shingo Obata ◽  
Chris J. Cieszewski ◽  
Roger C. Lowe III ◽  
Pete Bettinger

The forest volumes are essential as they are directly related to the economic and environmental values of the forests. Satellite-based forest volume estimation was first developed in the 1990s, and the accuracy of the estimation has been improved over time. One of the satellite-based forest volume estimation issues is that it tends to overestimate the large volume class and underestimate the small volume class. Free availability of the major satellite imagery and the development of cloud-based computational platforms facilitate an immense amount of satellite imagery in the estimation. In this paper, we set three objectives: (1) to examine whether the long Landsat time series contributes to the improvement of the estimation accuracy, (2) to explore the effectiveness of forest disturbance record and land cover data as ancillary spatial data on the accuracy of the estimation, and (3) to apply the bias correction method to reduce the bias of the estimation. We computed three Tasseled-cap components from the Landsat data for preparation of short (2014–2016) and long (1984–2016) time series. Each data entity was analyzed with harmonic regressions resulting in the coefficients and the fitted values recorded as pixel values in a multilayer raster database. Data included Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) unit field inventory measurements provided by the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service and the National Land Cover Database and disturbance history data added as ancillary information. The totality of the available data was organized into seven distinct Random Forest (RF) models with different variables compared against each other to identify the ones with the most satisfactory performance. A bias correction method was then applied to all the RF models to examine the effectiveness of the method. Among the seven models, the worst one used the coefficients and fitted values of the short Landsat time series only, and the best one used coefficients and fitted values of both short and long Landsat time series. Using the Out-of-bag (OOB) score, the best model was found to be 34.4% better than the worst one. The model that used only the long time series data had almost the same OOB score as the best model. The results indicate that the use of the long Landsat time series improves model performance. Contrary to the previous research employing forest disturbance data as a feature variable had almost no effect on OOB. The bias correction method reduced the relative size of the bias in the estimates of the best model from 3.79% to −1.47%, the bottom 10% bias by 12.5 points, and the top 10% bias by 9.9 points. Depending on the types of forest, important feature variables were differed, reflecting the relationship between the time series remote sensing data we computed for this research and the forests’ phenological characteristics. The availability of Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) data and accessibility of the precise locations of the FIA data are likely to improve the model estimates further.

Author(s):  
Tatiana Dias Tardelli Uehara ◽  
Anderson Reis Soares ◽  
Renata Pacheco Quevedo ◽  
Thales Sehn Korting ◽  
Leila Maria Garcia Fonseca ◽  
...  

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 1850 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Schultz ◽  
Aurélie Shapiro ◽  
Jan Clevers ◽  
Craig Beech ◽  
Martin Herold

Forest cover and vegetation degradation was monitored across the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA) in southern Africa and the performance of three different methods in detecting degradation was assessed using reference data. Breaks for Additive Season and Trend (BFAST) Monitor was used to identify potential forest cover and vegetation degradation using Landsat Normalized Difference Moisture Index (NDMI) time series data. Parametric probability-based magnitude thresholds, non-parametric random forest in conjunction with Soil-Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI) time series, and the combination of both methods were evaluated for their suitability to detect degradation for six land cover classes ranging from closed canopy forest to open grassland. The performance of degradation detection was largely dependent on tree cover and vegetation density. Satisfactory accuracies were obtained for closed woodland (user’s accuracy 87%, producer’s accuracy 71%) and closed forest (user’s accuracy 92%, producer’s accuracy 90%), with lower accuracies for open canopies. The performance of the three methods was more similar for closed canopies and differed for land cover classes with open canopies. Highest user’s accuracy was achieved when methods were combined, and the best performance for producer’s accuracy was obtained when random forest was used.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (17) ◽  
pp. 3501
Author(s):  
Yong Piao ◽  
Seunggyu Jeong ◽  
Sangjin Park ◽  
Dongkun Lee

North Korea being one of the most degraded forests globally has recently been emphasizing in forest restoration. Monitoring the trend of forest restoration in North Korea has important reference significance for regional environmental management and ecological security. Thus, this study constructed and analyzed a time-series land use land cover (LULC) map to identify the LULC changes (LULCCs) over extensive periods across North Korea and understand the forest change trends. The analysis of LULC used Landsat multi-temporal image and Random Forest algorithm on Google Earth Engine(GEE) from 2001 to 2018 in North Korea. Through the LULCC detection technique and consideration of the cropland change relation with elevation, the forest change in North Korea for 2001–2018 was evaluated. We extended the existing sampling methodology and obtained a higher overall accuracy (98.2% ± 1.6%), with corresponding kappa coefficients (0.959 ± 0.037), and improved the classification accuracy in cropland and forest cover. Through the change detection and spatial analysis, our research shows that the forests in the southern and central regions of North Korea are undergoing restoration. The sampling method we extended in this study can effectively and reliably monitoring the change trend of North Korea forests. It also provides an important reference for the regional environmental management and ecological security in North Korea.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (10) ◽  
pp. 3553
Author(s):  
Jeremy Watts ◽  
Anahita Khojandi ◽  
Rama Vasudevan ◽  
Fatta B. Nahab ◽  
Ritesh A. Ramdhani

Parkinson’s disease medication treatment planning is generally based on subjective data obtained through clinical, physician-patient interactions. The Personal KinetiGraph™ (PKG) and similar wearable sensors have shown promise in enabling objective, continuous remote health monitoring for Parkinson’s patients. In this proof-of-concept study, we propose to use objective sensor data from the PKG and apply machine learning to cluster patients based on levodopa regimens and response. The resulting clusters are then used to enhance treatment planning by providing improved initial treatment estimates to supplement a physician’s initial assessment. We apply k-means clustering to a dataset of within-subject Parkinson’s medication changes—clinically assessed by the MDS-Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale-III (MDS-UPDRS-III) and the PKG sensor for movement staging. A random forest classification model was then used to predict patients’ cluster allocation based on their respective demographic information, MDS-UPDRS-III scores, and PKG time-series data. Clinically relevant clusters were partitioned by levodopa dose, medication administration frequency, and total levodopa equivalent daily dose—with the PKG providing similar symptomatic assessments to physician MDS-UPDRS-III scores. A random forest classifier trained on demographic information, MDS-UPDRS-III scores, and PKG time-series data was able to accurately classify subjects of the two most demographically similar clusters with an accuracy of 86.9%, an F1 score of 90.7%, and an AUC of 0.871. A model that relied solely on demographic information and PKG time-series data provided the next best performance with an accuracy of 83.8%, an F1 score of 88.5%, and an AUC of 0.831, hence further enabling fully remote assessments. These computational methods demonstrate the feasibility of using sensor-based data to cluster patients based on their medication responses with further potential to assist with medication recommendations.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dengqiu Li ◽  
Dengsheng Lu ◽  
Ming Wu ◽  
Xuexin Shao ◽  
Jinhong Wei

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 1743
Author(s):  
Daniel Paluba ◽  
Josef Laštovička ◽  
Antonios Mouratidis ◽  
Přemysl Štych

This study deals with a local incidence angle correction method, i.e., the land cover-specific local incidence angle correction (LC-SLIAC), based on the linear relationship between the backscatter values and the local incidence angle (LIA) for a given land cover type in the monitored area. Using the combination of CORINE Land Cover and Hansen et al.’s Global Forest Change databases, a wide range of different LIAs for a specific forest type can be generated for each scene. The algorithm was developed and tested in the cloud-based platform Google Earth Engine (GEE) using Sentinel-1 open access data, Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) digital elevation model, and CORINE Land Cover and Hansen et al.’s Global Forest Change databases. The developed method was created primarily for time-series analyses of forests in mountainous areas. LC-SLIAC was tested in 16 study areas over several protected areas in Central Europe. The results after correction by LC-SLIAC showed a reduction of variance and range of backscatter values. Statistically significant reduction in variance (of more than 40%) was achieved in areas with LIA range >50° and LIA interquartile range (IQR) >12°, while in areas with low LIA range and LIA IQR, the decrease in variance was very low and statistically not significant. Six case studies with different LIA ranges were further analyzed in pre- and post-correction time series. Time-series after the correction showed a reduced fluctuation of backscatter values caused by different LIAs in each acquisition path. This reduction was statistically significant (with up to 95% reduction of variance) in areas with a difference in LIA greater than or equal to 27°. LC-SLIAC is freely available on GitHub and GEE, making the method accessible to the wide remote sensing community.


Author(s):  
Bekan Chelkeba Tumsa

Abstract Selecting a suitable bias correction method is important to provide reliable inputs for evaluation of climate change impact. Their influence was studied by comparing three discharge outputs from the SWAT model. The result after calibration with original RCM indicate that the raw RCM are heavily biased, and lead to streamflow simulation with large biases (NSE = 0.1, R2 = 0.53, MAE = 5.91 mm/°C, and PBIAS = 0.51). Power transformation and linear scaling methods performed best in correcting the frequency-based indices, while the LS method performed best in terms of the time series-based indices (NSE = 0.87, R2 = 0.78, MAE = 3.14 mm/°C, PBIAS = 0.24) during calibration. Meanwhile, daily translation was underestimating simulated streamflow compared with observed and considered as the least performing method. Precipitation correction method has higher visual influence than temperature, and its performance in streamflow simulations was consistent and significantly considerable. Power transformation and variance scaling showed highly qualified performance compared to others with indicated time series value (NSE = 0.92, R2 = 0.88, MAE = 1.58 mm/°C and PBIAS = 0.12) during calibration and validation of streamflow. Hence, PT and VARI methods were the dominant methods which remove biasness from RCM models at Akaki River basin.


Author(s):  
Junichi ARIMURA ◽  
Zhongrui QIU ◽  
Tetsuya OKAYASU ◽  
Koutarou CHICHIBU ◽  
Kunihiro WATANABE ◽  
...  

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