FOREST DRAGON - 3: Forest Ecosystem Mapping within China

The overall goal of the FOREST DRAGON 3 project is to advance understanding in forest ecosystems mapping within China. In addition, methodological developments towards the synergy of different sensors and techniques are proposed. Furthermore, a profound study will be carried out, in which a Decision Support System (DSS) will be built around web services providing decision-support on the mixture of eco-system services in local to regional scale integrating space and airborne remote sensing data. The eight objectives of the FOREST DRAGON 3 project are 1) the investigation of scaling effects in forest ecosystem mapping with SAR data, 2) the long-term analysis of forest GSV and forest structure over Northeast China based on SAR data, 3) linking forest DRAGON products with existing land use, land cover and/or fire products and 4) the synergy of optical and radar data for mapping forest ecosystems, 5) adapt current forest mapping algorithms to Eastern Russia, 6) adapt current and develop new forest mapping algorithm in Continental Southeast Asia, 7) use the Sentinels-1/2 data for forest map updating, 8) developing a modeling approach for forest services using space data as input for multi-criteria DSS in mountainous forests in China using earth observation. Under-pining the models will be the technology of remote sensing and existing spatial geo-data to establish or/and enhance forest, land cover and landform information. The project will deliver theoretical results as well as wall-to-wall maps of forest parameters for China and neighboring countries. Furthermore, this study will result in a new methodological base for DSS in forest resource management for mountain forest areas in China. This will be pursued through a case study in pilot region(s) in E and NE China. As a result of Objective 1, a thorough analysis of scaling effects in forest structure mapping and forest GSV mapping at different spatial resolutions will be delivered. The outcome of Objectives 2 and 3 includes validated forest GSV and GSV change maps for the years 1995-2005-2010 and possibly 2015 for Northeast China. The products will be generated in close cooperation with and will be exchanged with other DRAGON 3 teams involved in vegetated ecosystems analyses. In addition, methodological procedures for (i) improving and/or validating Forest DRAGON maps with other DRAGON products or several land use or land cover maps and (ii) for validating forest GSV change by means of fire emission data will be presented. This work will be linked to DRAGON 3 proposals for rice and crop mapping, fire monitoring and atmospheric pollutants. The deliverables for Objective 4 include methodological procedures (i.e. a Sentinel-Procedure) for monitoring forest ecosystems using different sensors (optical, radar) synergistically at different temporal and spatial scales in accordance with GEOSS requirements. Objective 5 and Objective 6 include the analysis of algorithms for forest change detection in tropical forest, the forest GSV and coverage maps, forest change analysis in Eastern Russia and Continental Southeast Asia. The time period will include 1995-2005. Objective 7 deals with algorithms for forest GSV estimation and coverage mapping using Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data, updated 2015 forest GSV and coverage maps for Northeast and South of China, Eastern Russia and Continental Southeast Asia. The system developed based on the objective 8 will trigger a science-based management tool for forests in mountainous areas.

Ansprechpartner: Andreas Fritz
Tel: +49(0)761-203-67393
Email: teja.kattenborn@felis.uni-freiburg.de

Projektbeginn: 01.06.2012
Projektende: 01.11.2016

KOCH B, SCHMULLIUS C.C

Prof. Dr. Christiana Cornelia Schmullius
Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Department for Earth Observation
Loebdergraben 32
Jena
GERMANY
+49.(0)3641.9488-80/81
c.schmullius@uni-jena.de

Professur für Fernerkundung und Landschaftsinformationssysteme
Prof. Dr. Barbara Koch
Tennenbacherstr. 4
79106 Freiburg i. Br.

Telefon: +49 761 203-3694
Fax: +49 761 203-3701
Email: ferninfo@felis.uni-freiburg.de
http://www.felis.uni-freiburg.de/

SCHMULLIUS: Professor, SIR-C/X-SAR/SRTM Science Team Lead, Coordinator SIBERIA, SIBERIA-II and FOREST DRAGON-1 and -2 projects, ESA Land Cover Project Office Lead, Coordinator DLR-project TerraSAR-X for FAO FRA-2010, Member of ESA's Earth Science Advisory Committee. LI: Professor, Remote Sensing Experts Commission of China and GOFC/CEOS- Technical Group, independent expert of UNCCD, technical coordinator of “Dragon Program” and coordinator and PI of several projects on spatial information, forest/rice/crop mapping. 2001-2005, Co-PI and technical coordinator for management of forest resources and forest ecological programs. KOCH: Professor, head of the Department of Remote Sensing and Landscape Information Systems of the University of Freiburg, leader and coordinator of several research projects on national and international levels (including several projects funded by the European Commission (e.g Geoland, GSE Forest Monitoring, ESA, German Science Fundation and German Ministry of Education and Research), member of the FAO team for developing forest inventory guidelines. ZHANG: Professor,director of Department of Forest Management, College of Forestry in Beijing Forestry University (China),. council member of several professional associations in China (Environmental Remote Sensing Branch Society of the Geographical Society of China, Beijing Society for Information Technology in Agriculture), expert in forest management, disaster monitoring, computer vision, spatial prediction and remote sensing, leader and coordinator of projects supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the National Key Technology R&D Program, the Natural Science Foundation of Beijing the Chinese Ministry of Education. LE TOAN: Senior Scientist, Coordinator of EUFORA and Active Remote Sensing Retrieval Algorithms, member of ESA SAR Advisory Group, Lead of Earth Explorer Candidate Mission BIOMASS. SANTORO (Post-doc), WEGMÜLLER (Senior Scientist): Experience in InSAR-based forestry applications, Co-coordinator of SIBERIA-II project. LATIFI: Post-Doc, expert in forest inventory and remote sensing, environmental expert, FAO consultant in forest management in central Asia. doctoral degree at the Dept. of Remote Sensing and Landscape Information Systems of the University of Freiburg. WANG: Post-Doc, scientist at GIZ in the Sino-German Cooperation Platform for the Conservation of Species Rich, Highly Carbon-Storing Ecosystems Project in China, doctoral 4 degree at University of Freiburg, project work in the Virtual Environmental Planning System (VEPS), the Wood Wisdom-Net and IRIS Research projects. SOLBERG: Experience in retrieval of forest parameters with Lidar and SAR data. CHEN: Professor, SAR forest application team at CAF, co-investigator of the FOREST DRAGON-1 project. BAI: Associate professor, InSAR and hyper-spectral data analysis. SUN: Leader of forest remote sensing research group at IRSA. PANG: Associate professor, Forest parameter retrieval from multi-source remote sensing data, in particular LiDAR, hyperspectral and SAR.