Mapping percent tree cover in Seyhan ? upper basin forests using envisat MERIS data

Percent tree cover is the percentage of the ground surface area covered by a vertical projection of the outermost perimeter of the plants. The aim of this study was to derive percent tree cover map using Envisat MERIS data of Seyhan River ? Upper Basin at the Eastern Mediterranean Region of Turkey. In this study, Regression Tree algorithm was used to estimate percent tree cover maps. The medium resolution Envisat MERIS with a 300 m was used as predictor variables. Three scenes of high resolution IKONOS images were employed for training and testing the model.The predictor variables incorporated in addition to biophysical variables estimated from the MERIS data. In this study, five vegetation biophysical variables including: normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI), leaf area index (LAI), fraction of photosynthetically active radiation (fPAR), MERIS terrestrial chlorophyll index (MTCI) and COVER (fCOVER) were incorporated to Envisat MERIS band settings. These variables were used to increase the accuracy of regression tree model. Percent tree cover map as final output was derived from MERIS acquired over Seyhan upper Basin and the biophysical variables. In addition to that percent tree cover of Juniperus excelsa, Pinus brutia, Cedrus libani, Pinus nigra and mixed Taurus fir were estimated at 300 m spatial resolution.