Changes in the forest landscape of Mt. makiling forest reserve, Philippines

Abstract

Changes in the forest landscape of Mt. Makiling Forest Reserve were evaluated given the three different time periods of remotely sensed datasets using ISOCLUST method. The classification explicitly figured out that the forest areas are persistent or still intact while spatially expanding the coverage from the area. The change analysis revealed that the spatial distribution of various land-cover categories was subjected to gain and loss based on the latest and previous remotely sensed data sets. High gains for forest areas and many losses on agroforestry areas were established at certain time spans. The land cover by category denotes a decrease of forest areas between 1993 and 2002, and eventually increases in line with the latest period. The increase in agroforestry areas was merely detected between 1993 and 2002 and subsequently reduced the possible expansion of its area coverage. A great deal of land cover can be perceived to the restoration efforts made in the study area. Applying NDVI in the segmentation process during the image classification demonstrated to be a constructive approach of classifying land cover types. © 2011 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.