Evaluation of the structure and composition of forests in Moscow region based on field and remote sensing data

Abstract

The sequence and content of the main stages of determining the indicators of the structure and composition of forest communities based on satellite imagery of the Landsat system are described. It is shown that the application of quantitative processing methods for the interpolation of point data from field research, in particular canonical discriminant analysis, allows obtaining characteristics of the vegetation cover and investigating the factors of its biodiversity formation. The presented methods and results of the assessment of various parameters of the state of forests, their structure and typological composition can be integrated into the international network of the National Forest Inventory. Despite the difference in methodological approaches, there is a principal possibility of harmonizing the data obtained with the data of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems. For the test territory in the central partof the Russian plain (western sector of the Moscow oblast), the results of a joint analysis of field research data, remote sensing dataand a digital elevation model are presented. A series of maps of the medium scale characterizing the spatial structure and composition of the forest cover of the study area was obtained.