Continuous Urban Tree Cover Mapping from Landsat Imagery in Bengaluru, India
Percent tree cover maps derived from Landsat imagery provide a useful data source for monitoring changes in tree cover over time. Urban trees are a special group of trees outside forests (TOFs) and occur often as solitary trees, in roadside alleys and in small groups, exhibiting a wide range of crow...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2021-02-01
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| Series: | Forests |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/2/220 |
| _version_ | 1797396648062615552 |
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| author | Nils Nölke |
| author_facet | Nils Nölke |
| author_sort | Nils Nölke |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Percent tree cover maps derived from Landsat imagery provide a useful data source for monitoring changes in tree cover over time. Urban trees are a special group of trees outside forests (TOFs) and occur often as solitary trees, in roadside alleys and in small groups, exhibiting a wide range of crown shapes. Framed by house walls and with impervious surfaces as background and in the immediate neighborhood, they are difficult to assess from Landsat imagery with a 30 m pixel size. In fact, global maps based on Landsat partly failed to detect a considerable portion of urban trees. This study presents a neural network approach applied to the urban trees in the metropolitan area of Bengaluru, India, resulting in a new map of estimated tree cover (MAE = 13.04%); this approach has the potential to also detect smaller trees within cities. Our model was trained with ground truth data from WorldView-3 very high resolution imagery, which allows to assess tree cover per pixel from 0% to 100%. The results of this study may be used to improve the accuracy of Landsat-based time series of tree cover in urban environments. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T00:53:27Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-56b8c819fe3c4f3da7286dbb48c631ee |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1999-4907 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T00:53:27Z |
| publishDate | 2021-02-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Forests |
| spelling | doaj.art-56b8c819fe3c4f3da7286dbb48c631ee2023-12-11T17:00:39ZengMDPI AGForests1999-49072021-02-0112222010.3390/f12020220Continuous Urban Tree Cover Mapping from Landsat Imagery in Bengaluru, IndiaNils Nölke0Forest Inventory and Remote Sensing, Faculty of Forest Sciences and Forest Ecology, University of Göttingen, Büsgenweg 5, 37077 Göttingen, GermanyPercent tree cover maps derived from Landsat imagery provide a useful data source for monitoring changes in tree cover over time. Urban trees are a special group of trees outside forests (TOFs) and occur often as solitary trees, in roadside alleys and in small groups, exhibiting a wide range of crown shapes. Framed by house walls and with impervious surfaces as background and in the immediate neighborhood, they are difficult to assess from Landsat imagery with a 30 m pixel size. In fact, global maps based on Landsat partly failed to detect a considerable portion of urban trees. This study presents a neural network approach applied to the urban trees in the metropolitan area of Bengaluru, India, resulting in a new map of estimated tree cover (MAE = 13.04%); this approach has the potential to also detect smaller trees within cities. Our model was trained with ground truth data from WorldView-3 very high resolution imagery, which allows to assess tree cover per pixel from 0% to 100%. The results of this study may be used to improve the accuracy of Landsat-based time series of tree cover in urban environments.https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/2/220fully connected networkmachine learningLandsattree cover |
| spellingShingle | Nils Nölke Continuous Urban Tree Cover Mapping from Landsat Imagery in Bengaluru, India Forests fully connected network machine learning Landsat tree cover |
| title | Continuous Urban Tree Cover Mapping from Landsat Imagery in Bengaluru, India |
| title_full | Continuous Urban Tree Cover Mapping from Landsat Imagery in Bengaluru, India |
| title_fullStr | Continuous Urban Tree Cover Mapping from Landsat Imagery in Bengaluru, India |
| title_full_unstemmed | Continuous Urban Tree Cover Mapping from Landsat Imagery in Bengaluru, India |
| title_short | Continuous Urban Tree Cover Mapping from Landsat Imagery in Bengaluru, India |
| title_sort | continuous urban tree cover mapping from landsat imagery in bengaluru india |
| topic | fully connected network machine learning Landsat tree cover |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/2/220 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT nilsnolke continuousurbantreecovermappingfromlandsatimageryinbengaluruindia |