ASSESSMENTS OF LAND COVER /USE AND FRACTIONAL COVER ANALYIS INNORTHERN THAILAND

摘要

Satellite images are very useful for mapping land cover/use at regional and global scales. This study employed multitemporal Landsat images for obtaining the information on broad land cover/use types over Thailand during 1999-2000. It focuses on the use of Landsat scene 131/47 for: (1) obtaining forest and non-forest areas and other land cover types; (2) mapping the forest fractional cover (fc), and (3) obtaining the biophysical properties in the forest areas based on field measurements and the Gap Light Analyzer Software. Results shows that forest areasrnoccupied 74 % of the total area, and the non forest areas account for about 16 %. Thernremaining areas (10 %) consisted of water, cloud and cloud shadows, respectively. Thernpercentage of fractional cover shows the spatial variation of forest and vegetation density acrossrnthe image scene. The gap light analysis of fish eye photographs offers the information onrnbiophysical properties from forest areas, which can be used to compare with fractional cover inrnthe image data for assessing degradation, recovery and biophysical properties in the tropicalrnforests.