A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal

Mapping environmental variation in lowland Amazonian rainforests using remote sensing and floristic data




AuthorsAnders Sirén, Hanna Tuomisto, Hugo Navarrete

PublisherTAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD

Publication year2013

JournalInternational Journal of Remote Sensing

Journal name in sourceINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF REMOTE SENSING

Journal acronymINT J REMOTE SENS

Number in series5

Volume34

Issue5

First page 1561

Last page1575

Number of pages15

ISSN0143-1161

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1080/01431161.2012.723148


Abstract
This article describes a method for detailed mapping of ecological variation in a tropical rainforest based on field inventory of pteridophytes (ferns and lycophytes) and remote sensing using Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) imagery. Previously known soil cation optima of the pteridophyte species were first used in calibration, i.e. to infer soil cation concentrations for sites on the basis of their pteridophyte species composition. Multiple linear regression based on spectral reflectance values in the Landsat image was then used to derive an equation that allowed the prediction of these calibrated soil values for unvisited sites in the study area. The predictive accuracy turned out to be high: the mean absolute error, as estimated by leave-one-out cross-validation, was just 7% of the total range of calibrated soil values. This method for detailed mapping of natural environmental variability in lowland tropical rainforest has applications for land-use planning, such as wildlife management, forestry, biodiversity conservation, and payments for carbon sequestration.



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