FOREST RESOURCES STUDY IN MONGOLIA USING ADVANCED SPATIAL TECHNOLOGIES

Abstract

Abstract. The aim of this study is to conduct a forest resources study using optical and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite images. For this purpose, a forest-dominated site around the Lake Khuvsgul located in northern Mongolia is selected. As remote sensing (RS) data sources, panchromatic and multispectral Landsat 7 images as well as ALOS PALSAR L-band HH polarization data are used. To produce a reliable land cover map from the multisensor images, a novel refined maximum likelihood classification based on the spectral and spatial thresholds are applied and for the accuracy assessment an overall accuracy is used. Overall, the research demonstrates that advanced spatial technologies based on optical and microwave RS are reliable tools for different forest studies.