P1-5: Scale issues in forest information procurement

PhD student: Philip Mundhenk
Thesis Committee: Prof. Christoph Kleinn, Dr. Steen Magnussen, Prof. Thomas Kneib
Graduation Date: 5/2014

Most activities in forestry are scale related, be it in management, policy processes, or research. While information for operational forest planning is needed on a stand level, strategic planning and policy formulation requires information on a national, regional or even global level. On each level data from various sources and thus, at different scales are used. Such information needs to be transparent, consistent, and methodically sound in order to serve as a reliable base for decision makers.

Our research focuses on the role of spatial scale in definitions of forest and forest edge. The widely used minimum crown cover criterion in forest definitions and its effects an forest area estimation as a function of differently structured forests is investigated. Furthermore, the issue of scale in the context of data acquisition of Trees outside Forests (ToFs) is studied. Our goal is to improve and develop new methods to identify ToF resources from satellite images at different geometric, spatial and radiometric resolutions. In this context, various response designs (point, line and area observations) at various scales are examined to improve ToF assessments.

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