Methods of detection and ecological state evaluation of protective forest belts using complex ground survey and remote sensing data processing

Abstract

The protective forest belt system of Samara region consists of several components created from the late 19th to the early 20th century, in the middle of the 20th century, in the 60-70s of the 20 th century, and more recent plantings. In the forest-steppe and steppe regions with a high level of agricultural transformations, the natural biological equilibrium of ecosystems is significantly disturbed. The protective forest belts play an important role in natural and anthropogenic landscapes conservation in Samara region. Because of numerous dispersed forest belt distribution throughout the Samara region territory, their different ownership and the lack of sufficient funds for their monitoring, it is difficult to organize belt state monitoring on the ground. The use of space imagery, which is processed during verification using data obtained from reference polygons, can help to overcome this situation. The peculiarity of forest belts as an extended object of relatively small width actualizes the task of developing the methods for their condition assessing. In this paper, some results of this work are analyzed for reference areas of field shelterbelts and roadside forest belts of the Samara region.