Relative abundance estimations of Chengal trees in a tropical rainforest by using modified canopy fractional cover (mCFC)

Abstract

Tree species composition estimations are important to sustain forest management. This study estimates relative abundance of useful timber tree species (chengal) using Hyperion EO-1 satellite data. For the estimation, modified Canopy Fractional Cover (mCFC) was developed using Canopy Fractional Cover (CFC). mCFC was more sensitive to estimate relative abundance of chengal trees rather than Mixture Tuned Matched Filtering (MTMF). Meanwhile, MTMF was more sensitive to estimate the relative abundance of undisturbed forest. Accuracy suggests that the mCFC model is better to explain relative abundance of chengal trees than MTMF. Therefore, it can be concluded that relative abundance of tree species extracted from Hyperion EO-1 satellite data using modified Canopy Fractional Cover is an obtrusive approach used for identifying tree species composition.