What is it about?
Canopy cover estimates were compared between hemispherical and cover phtoography using artificial, real and modelled forest canopies. Results indicated that cover photography is a robust method to estimate canopy cover, whose accuracy was not affected by both actual canopy cover and mean gap size.
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Why is it important?
Cover photography can be used as a standard tool to describe canopy cover in forest inventory. The method is simple, easily replicable, and not sensitive to image acquisition and processing, being therefore highlsy suitable for comparable studies and routine measurements and monitoring of forest canopy cover.
Perspectives
The international definition of a forest is based on canopy cover: the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has defined forest as land of at least 0.5 ha with potential canopy cover over 10% and potential tree height of at least five meters (FAO 2000). To ensure compatibility of international forestry statistics, forest canopy cover needs to be included in national forest inventories.
Dr Francesco Chianucci
Forestry Research Centre, Italy
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A note on estimating canopy cover from digital cover and hemispherical photography, Silva Fennica, January 2016, Finnish Society of Forest Science,
DOI: 10.14214/sf.1518.
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