Land Cover Types Differentiation through Normalized Difference Vegetation Index in the Lowland Rainforests of Papua New Guinea

• Main Author: David Lopez Cornelio
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bogor Agricultural University 2012-01-01
• Series: Jurnal Manajemen Hutan Tropika
• Online Access: http://journal.ipb.ac.id/index.php/jmht/article/view/3981

<p>The accurate estimation of above ground biomass in the natural forests of Papua New Guinea is a key component<br />for the successful implementation of the REDD policy in the country. Biomass densities in a lowland rainforest<br />site located at the northeast of the country were differentiated with Landsat digital images throughout normalized<br />difference vegetation index (NDVI). Submaps of 4,377.69 ha of bands 3 and 4 were georeferenced with affine<br />transformation and a RMSE of 0.529. The calculated NDVI map was sliced to separate its pixel values into 5<br />classes as they are distributed in the histogram with the assistance of ground truth points. The method is simple,<br />fast and reliable, however swampy palm forest could not be discriminated from dense forests; and different bare<br />land types had to be grouped into a single major class. Therefore other vegetation indexes and/or band ratios<br />are recommended to be tested using images of higher spatial resolution to accurately differentiate more classes.</p><p>Keywords: land cover, biomass, normalized difference vegetation index, lowland rainforest, Papua New Guinea</p>