Potenzial von Sentinel-2-Satellitendaten für Anwendungen im Waldbereich

Abstract

Sentinel-2 satellite data have been freely available since the end of 2015. The high spatial resolution, the global coverage, the frequent revisit times and the important spectral bands for vegetation analyses open up new perspectives for forest applications. In this study, the potential of Sentinel-2 was investigated through application examples in the forest enterprise of Burgergemeinde Bern on the Swiss Plateau. For this purpose the determination of the deciduous or coniferous proportion, the recording of interventions, as well as the early detection of natural disturbances were tested. Reference data from the forest enterprise (forest inventory, map of harvesting measures, delimitation of a wildfire) were used as training data and for the validation of the results. By using Sentinel- 2 data from three different dates, 56% of the variation of the deciduous or coniferous proportion could be explained by a regression model. This model was much better than those that used data from one or two time steps only. The distinction of pure deciduous and coniferous stands achieved an accuracy of 90%. The detection of interventions determined by the differences in the spectral information of Sentinel- 2 data from two acquisition dates was highly compliant with the information from the forest enterprise. This was also confirmed by the detection of a forest fire area, which highlights the potential of Sentinel-2 for the early and large-scale detection of natural disturbances.