Case Studies Forestry and Urban Tree Management projects
Ramin Tree Detection – Pekan Rainforests – Malaysia
Objective of the Project:
The Ramin tree is a rare species in the native and managed forests in Peninsula Malaysia protected by national and international law. The task was to identify Ramin trees in native and managed forests, map their positions, and collect attributes such as height and canopy diameters for each identified tree.
Technical Solution:
The test area with a size of 8km by 5km was flown using a fixed-wing aircraft equipped with full waveform Lidar, digital camera, and VNIR Hyperspectral sensor. The points density for the Lidar data was better than 3 pts/sqm while the resolution of the VNIR Hyperspectral data was 0.5m with 160 bands.
The ground in the test area was peat swamps, so wide parts were covered with water, which made the ground detection difficult. For the test area, Dimap measured together with local forester individual trees and identified more than 130 Ramin trees in different flowing statuses as ground truthing data. The analysis using object-based classification combining Lidar data and the Hyperspectral data identified with a probability of 88% the Ramin trees of the top strata and mapped their canopies as vector objects.
Achievements:
In the test area, more than 2100 Ramin trees were identified and mapped. The methodology was accepted by the local authorities as a possible way of monitoring the distribution of endangered species. Ongoing studies will define the perfect season for the mapping work and the relationship of Height, Canopy diameter, and stem diameter to support taxations.
Figure 10: Pekan peat swam rainforest – image shows the density of the forests.
All copyrights with Dimap – 2014