MARYLAND COMPREHENSIVE STATE FOREST ASSESSMENT Creating Forest Stand Inventories Via Definiens Developer 7.0TM Image Segmentation and ERDAS Imagine Software Report for: Harry R. Hughes Center for Agro-Ecology, Inc. College of Agriculture and Natural Resources University of Maryland College Park, MD Submitted by: Jack L. Perdue Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service Annapolis, MD February 10, 2011 PROJECT CONTRIBUTORS Harry Kahler U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2800 Cottage Way, Rm W-2605 Sacramento, CA 95825-1846 [email protected] Alexander Clark Maryland Department of Natural Resources Chesapeake Forest 6572 Snow Hill Road Snow Hill, MD 21863 [email protected] Jack L. Perdue Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service 580 Taylor Ave, E-1 Annapolis, MD 21401 [email protected] Francis Zumbrun Maryland Department of Natural Resources Green Ridge State Forest 28700 Headquarters Dr, NE Flintstone, MD 21530 [email protected] Andrew Lister USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station National Inventory and Monitoring Applications Center Forest Inventory and Analysis Unit 11 Campus Blvd, Suite 200 Newtown Square, PA 19073 [email protected] Clair L. Patterson, III “Pat” Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service 580 Taylor Ave, E-1 Annapolis, MD 21401 [email protected] Funding for this report was provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Services – Special Projects 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I - INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................................7 OBJECTIVES ...............................................................................................................................................................8 CHAPTER II - METHODS......................................................................................................................................13 STUDY AREA ...........................................................................................................................................................14 Green Ridge State Forest...................................................................................................................................15 Potomac-Garrett State Forest............................................................................................................................17 Savage River State Forest ..................................................................................................................................17 ECOLOGICAL COMMUNITY GROUPS ........................................................................................................................18 CONTINUOUS FOREST INVENTORY ..........................................................................................................................18 STRATIFICATION VIA IMAGE SEGMENTATION .........................................................................................................19 Imagery and Layers Used in the Segmentation..................................................................................................20 Delineating and Classifying the Stands .............................................................................................................21 Incorporating Existing Boundaries....................................................................................................................27 Exporting the Segmented Objects and Preparing for Classification .................................................................27 CLASSIFICATION METHODOLOGY............................................................................................................................28 Definiens Developer’s “nearest neighbor” classification .................................................................................28 Leica Geosystems ERDAS Imagine’s “maximum likelihood” classification scheme ........................................31 WEKA Data Mining “IBk nearest neighbor” classification ..............................................................................37 CHAPTER III - RESULTS AND DISCUSSION....................................................................................................39 COMPARISON OF METHODS .....................................................................................................................................39 Accuracy Assessments........................................................................................................................................39 CHOSEN CLASSIFICATION METHOD(S) ....................................................................................................................41 INCORPORATING THE OUTPUT WITH EXISTING SYSTEMS ..........................................................................................42 CHAPTER IV - CONCLUSIONS............................................................................................................................44 LITERATURE CITED .............................................................................................................................................45 3 LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 2.1 FLOW CHART DEMONSTRATING THE MOVEMENT OF DATA THROUGH THE SYSTEM. ...................................13 FIGURE 2.2 THE STATE OF MARYLAND WITH THE WESTERN STATE FORESTS IN ENLARGED VIEW. ..............................15 FIGURE 2.3 A SAMPLE OF CFI PLOSTS AT GREEN RIDGE STATE FOREST.. ....................................................................19 FIGURE 2.4 AN EXAMPLE OF A PROCESS TREE WITH MULTIPLE NESTED PROCESSES......................................................20 FIGURE 2.5 EXAMPLES OF SEGMENTATIONS PERFORMED USING A SHAPE VALUE OF 0.1 (LEFT) AND 0.5 (RIGHT).........23 FIGURE 2.6 EXAMPLE OF A MULTIRESOLUTION SEGMENTATION ON A SUBSECTION OF GREEN RIDGE STATE FOREST ..24 FIGURE 2.7 IMAGE OBJECTS SMOOTHED USING THE MORPHOLOGY ALGORITHM ON A SUBSECTION OF GREEN RIDGE STATE FOREST..............................................................................................................................................................25 FIGURE 2.8 AN EXAMPLE OF SMOOTHED AND MERGED IMAGE OBJECTS ON A SUBSECTION OF GREEN RIDGE STATE FOREST, USING THE “MULTIRESOLUTION SEGMENTATION REGION GROW” AND “REMOVE OBJECTS” ALGORITHMS FOR MERGING . ....................................................................................................................................................................26 FIGURE 2.9 AN EXAMPLE OF IMAGE OBJECTS CLIPPED BY THE GREEN RIDGE STATE FOREST BOUNDARY TO CREATE A FINAL SHAPEFILE PRODUCT. GREEN RIDGE STATE FOREST LAND IS COLORED YELLOW, WHILE NON-STATE LANDS ARE COLORED GREEN...........................................................................................................................................................27 FIGURE 2.10 THE CLASSES USED FOR CLASSIFICATION IN DEFINIENS DEVELOPER. ......................................................29 FIGURE 2.11 A FEW EXAMPLES OF SAMPLES USED IN THE CLASSIFICATION PROCEDURE FOR DEFINIENS DEVELOPER..30 FIGURE 2.12 IMAGE OBJECTS CLASSIFIED USING DEFINIENS DEVELOPER’S FEATURE SPACE OPTIMIZATION. ...............31 FIGURE 2.13 PIXEL MAP USING ERDAS IMAGINE’S MAXIMUM LIKELIHOOD SUPERVISED CLASSIFICATION .................32 FIGURE 2.14 POLYGONS CLASSIFIED USING PIXEL-BASED MAXIMUM LIKELIHOOD SUPERVISED CLASSIFICATION AND ZONAL ATTRIBUTES IN ERDAS IMAGINE. ....................................................................................................................33 FIGURE 2.15 THE HIERARCHAL SYSTEM USED FOR GREEN RIDGE STATE FOREST. .......................................................34 FIGURE 2.16 AN EXAMPLE OF SIGNATURE PLOT MEANS AND ELLIPSES PLOTTED IN A FEATURE SPACE IMAGE SHOWING AREAS OF OVERLAP AND UNIQUENESS..........................................................................................................................35 FIGURE 2.17 PIXEL MAPS SHOWING THE CFI FOREST TYPE CLASSIFICATION (LEFT) AND THE RESULT OF CLASSIFYING ECGS FROM EXTRACTED “MIXED OAK” AREAS (RIGHT)..............................................................................................37 FIGURE 2.18 RASTER MAP SHOWING EXAMPLE OF PIXEL MAP CREATED USING WEKA DATA MINING SOFTWARE. .....38 FIGURE 3.1 EXAMPLE OF CELL ARRAY OUTPUT FROM THE ACCURACY ASSESSMENT....................................................40 FIGURE 3.2 EXAMPLE ACCURACY ASSESSMENT RESULTS WITH KAPPA STATISTICS. .....................................................41 FIGURE 3.3 GEODATABASE QUERYING AND POLYGONS................................................................................................42 4 LIST OF TABLES TABLE 1.1 SUSTAINABLE FORESTRY INITIATIVE (SFI) STANDARD PRINCIPLES FOR SUSTAINABLE FORESTRY, 2005- 2009 EDITION. ..............................................................................................................................................................10 TABLE 1.2 FOREST STEWARDSHIP COUNCIL (FSC) PRINCIPLES AND CRITERIA FOR FOREST MANAGEMENT THAT ARE APPLICABLE TO ALL FSC-CERTIFIED FORESTS..............................................................................................................11 TABLE 1.3 OBJECTIVES FOR SUSTAINABLE FORESTRY INITIATIVE (SFI) STANDARD, 2005-2009 EDITION...................12 TABLE 2.1 IMAGE LAYER WEIGHTS USED FOR GREEN RIDGE STATE FOREST. ..............................................................22