Abstract:Forests are important place for outdoor recreation and scenery appreciation. So in order to better meet the needs of the public, forest appreciation has received increasing attention from foresters in recent years. However, related research is still limited. Therefore, this paper seeks to examine the relationship between forest colors (measured by specific elements and spatial indices of color) and Scenic Beauty Estimation values. We researched Jiuzhai Valley in China by selecting 104 pictures to determine the scenic beauty estimation values of forests in a mountainous region. Quantitative color elements were extracted by programming on Matlab, and spatial indices of color patches were extracted by ArcGIS and FRAGSTATS. A total of 23 indices were obtained to explain the color characteristics of each forest picture. The results showed that the yellow and red colors were the main mutable colors of Jiuzhai Valley in autumn, but the color patches index had no significant change over time in that season. After partial correlation analysis, principal component analysis, and cluster analysis, we found that 14 color elements, eight color patch factors and six particular indices had an effect on the SBE values, which can then be used to efficiently measure and enhance the forest color beauty of Jiuzhai Valley.

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Urban tree and forest establishment is becoming one of the most significant approaches for combating the ecological and environmental problems associated with the rapid urbanization globally. The fragmentation of urban landscape and built鄄in facilities may leave less large scale open spaces for developing patchy forests and green spaces. Therefore, the urban tree canopy is one of the best indictors for quantitively and qualitively assessing urban forest characteristics thus a primary measure for urban forest planning and management. As a result, many communities are adopting Urban tree canopy (UTC) goals to maintain and improve forest benefits. UTC is defined as precentage of the leaves, branches and stems of trees that cover the ground when viewed from above. It is therefore widely used for evaluating water quality improvement, energy saving, urban heat island mitigation, air pollution reduction, property values adding, wildlife habitat conservation, social and educational opportunities, and aesthetic benefits that urban tree and forest can provide. UTC is relatively easy to measure by remote sensing technology and less costly than field sampling. UTC is a comparable index across a city and among cities whatever the size of the area is measured. In addition, UTC is a good performance measure for detecting changes across space and time and an easy-to鄄understand concept for communicating between managers and the public. The present development of UTC studies and applications can be summarized as 1) the UTC researches have firmly related with