Assessing the Importance of Tree Cover Threshold for Forest Cover Mapping Derived from Global Forest Cover in Myanmar
Comprehensive forest cover mapping is essential for making policy and management decisions. However, creating a forest cover map from raw remote sensing data is a barrier for many users. Here, we investigated the effects of different tree cover thresholds on the accuracy of forest cover maps derived...
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doaj-a0966de778674c8287628579502522ae2020-11-25T02:26:18ZengMDPI AGForests1999-49072019-11-011012106210.3390/f10121062f10121062Assessing the Importance of Tree Cover Threshold for Forest Cover Mapping Derived from Global Forest Cover in MyanmarKay Khaing Lwin0Tetsuji Ota1Katsuto Shimizu2Nobuya Mizoue3Graduate School of Bioresource and Bioenvironmental Sciences, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Fukuoka 819-0395, JapanInstitute of Decision Science for a Sustainable Society, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Fukuoka 819-0395, JapanForestry and Forest Products Research Institute, 1 Matsunosato, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8687, JapanFaculty of Agriculture, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Fukuoka 819-0395, JapanComprehensive forest cover mapping is essential for making policy and management decisions. However, creating a forest cover map from raw remote sensing data is a barrier for many users. Here, we investigated the effects of different tree cover thresholds on the accuracy of forest cover maps derived from the Global Forest Change Dataset (GFCD) across different ecological zones in a country-scale evaluation of Myanmar. To understand the effect of different thresholds on map accuracy, nine forest cover maps having thresholds ranging from 10% to 90% were created from the GFCD. The accuracy of the forest cover maps within each ecological zone and at the national scale was assessed. The overall accuracies of ecological zones other than tropical rainforest were highest when the threshold for tree cover was less than 50%. The appropriate threshold for tropical rainforests was 80%. Therefore, different optimal tree cover thresholds were required to achieve the highest overall accuracy depending on ecological zones. However, in the unique case of Myanmar, we were able to determine the threshold across the whole country. We concluded that the threshold for tree cover for creating a forest cover map should be determined according to the areal ratio of ecological zones determined from large-scale monitoring. Our results are applicable to tropical regions having similar ecological zones.https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/10/12/1062global forest change dataset (gfcd)global ecological zonetree coveroptimal thresholdmyanmar |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Kay Khaing Lwin Tetsuji Ota Katsuto Shimizu Nobuya Mizoue |
spellingShingle |
Kay Khaing Lwin Tetsuji Ota Katsuto Shimizu Nobuya Mizoue Assessing the Importance of Tree Cover Threshold for Forest Cover Mapping Derived from Global Forest Cover in Myanmar Forests global forest change dataset (gfcd) global ecological zone tree cover optimal threshold myanmar |
author_facet |
Kay Khaing Lwin Tetsuji Ota Katsuto Shimizu Nobuya Mizoue |
author_sort |
Kay Khaing Lwin |
title |
Assessing the Importance of Tree Cover Threshold for Forest Cover Mapping Derived from Global Forest Cover in Myanmar |
title_short |
Assessing the Importance of Tree Cover Threshold for Forest Cover Mapping Derived from Global Forest Cover in Myanmar |
title_full |
Assessing the Importance of Tree Cover Threshold for Forest Cover Mapping Derived from Global Forest Cover in Myanmar |
title_fullStr |
Assessing the Importance of Tree Cover Threshold for Forest Cover Mapping Derived from Global Forest Cover in Myanmar |
title_full_unstemmed |
Assessing the Importance of Tree Cover Threshold for Forest Cover Mapping Derived from Global Forest Cover in Myanmar |
title_sort |
assessing the importance of tree cover threshold for forest cover mapping derived from global forest cover in myanmar |
publisher |
MDPI AG |
series |
Forests |
issn |
1999-4907 |
publishDate |
2019-11-01 |
description |
Comprehensive forest cover mapping is essential for making policy and management decisions. However, creating a forest cover map from raw remote sensing data is a barrier for many users. Here, we investigated the effects of different tree cover thresholds on the accuracy of forest cover maps derived from the Global Forest Change Dataset (GFCD) across different ecological zones in a country-scale evaluation of Myanmar. To understand the effect of different thresholds on map accuracy, nine forest cover maps having thresholds ranging from 10% to 90% were created from the GFCD. The accuracy of the forest cover maps within each ecological zone and at the national scale was assessed. The overall accuracies of ecological zones other than tropical rainforest were highest when the threshold for tree cover was less than 50%. The appropriate threshold for tropical rainforests was 80%. Therefore, different optimal tree cover thresholds were required to achieve the highest overall accuracy depending on ecological zones. However, in the unique case of Myanmar, we were able to determine the threshold across the whole country. We concluded that the threshold for tree cover for creating a forest cover map should be determined according to the areal ratio of ecological zones determined from large-scale monitoring. Our results are applicable to tropical regions having similar ecological zones. |
topic |
global forest change dataset (gfcd) global ecological zone tree cover optimal threshold myanmar |
url |
https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/10/12/1062 |
work_keys_str_mv |
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