Mapping forest canopy changes and planning afforestation : a case study in Siem Reap Province, Cambodia | |
| Author | Heng Bauran |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no.RS-07-14 |
| Subject(s) | Forest canopies--Cambodia--Siem Reap Afforestation--Cambodia--Siem Reap |
| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of the degree of Master of Science in Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | The temporal changes in land use and land cover were mapped using Landsat TM /ETM+ for 1990,2002 and 2007. The supervise and unsupervised classification methods combined with AOI information for existing land use/land cover in 2003 and 2006 a long with aerial photographs were used for image classification and verification. The Geo-processing techniques were used for extraction of temporal forest map. The result shows that in 1990, the amount of forest was covered in a larger area and the agricultural and residential areas were covered in only a smaller area. But, in 2002 the secondary forest area has decreased steadily and agricultural land and residential area gave increased. In 2007, forest land was found decreasing steadily in higher amount and secondary forest started to increase in a smaller amount; but the agricultural and residential areas keep increasing in a larger area. To ensure the quality of output, the confusion matrix was developed and employed. The Forest Canopy Density (FCD) model was used with the temporal Landsat imageries in year 1990, 2002 and 2007 as the main input for the extraction of the temporal forest canopy density map. As the result, the FCD model was classified into 6 different classes such as: no data, non forest, low forest, medium forest, high forest and dense forest. In 1990, the research found that the medium, high and dense forests were covered in a lager area of Banteay Srei district. On the other hand, in 2002 high and dense forest areas have declined. But, it was increasing for the low forest and non forest area. In 2007, the dense forest found still decreasing it amount whereas high forest density found a little bit increasing; the low forest density and non forest area have steadily jumped up in a very high amount. By using change detection methods for the FCD maps with assistant of GIS techniques, the result of the change detection of FCD map was classify into 5 classes such as: deforested, growing, no change, no data and unknown. The result shows that the highest deforestation periods were during in 1990-2002 and 2002-2007. Also, the highest growing period were indicated in 1990-2002. However, the vector and raster based Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques combined with the boolean logic method and the input of some factors such as land use including forest in 2002 and 2007, FCD maps in 2007, elevation, environmental and conservation as well forestry and state land legal document of Cambodia were necessarily tool/information and data sources for exploring the suitability area and generating the afforestration map. The resulting suitability map was classified into 4 main classes such as: highly suitable, moderate suitable, marginally suitable and not suitable. The outcome of this suitability mapping may be used for recommendation to afforestration planning in the Banteay Srei district, Siem Reap province. |
| Year | 2007 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Engineering and Technology (SET) |
| Department | Department of Information and Communications Technologies (DICT) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Remote Sensing (RS) |
| Chairperson(s) | Tripathi, Nitin K. |
| Examination Committee(s) | Vivarad Phonekeo;Noumi, Yousuke |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | Japan |
| Degree | Thesis (M.Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2007 |