Abstract

The Hyrcanian Caspian forest in northern Iran which used to be rich in flora and fauna is now facing deforestation at a tremendously rapid pace. Current forest management plans fail in monitoring forest status and detect illegal forest activities in time. During recent years, natural resource managers have shown interest in forestry application of remote sensing techniques as a cost effective way to monitor and manage biodiversity and land cover/use changes but the full potential of remote sensing has not been explored so far.The present study will have an umbrella review over current status of RS and GIS tool applications in monitoring northern forest of Iran. Specific projects are reviewed briefly and advantages of having access to high resolution imagery in conducting forest inventories is discussed. The study also argues briefly how image interpretation can help in extracting stand structure information or detecting clear-cuts in forested area accurately. Finally alternatives to expensive high resolution satellite imagery are suggested for researchers with good GIS skill level but limited financial support to carry out their research.

Keywords

Hyrcanian Caspian forest; high resolution imagery; remote sensing; image interpretation; natural resource management

Published in

Publisher: Civilica

Conference

The first comprehensive international conference on the environment, 2016, Tehran

Authors' information