Accuracy assessment of a remote sensing-based, pan-European forest cover map using multi-country national forest inventory data

The FMAP2006 is a pan-European forest map, recently produced at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. The fine spatial resolution at which the pixels have been mapped (25m) has important benefits for derived products, e.g., analyzing landscape fragmentation and spatial pattern changes. This validation study showed another advantage. A unique dataset of detailed field reference plots was available through a collaboration with National Forest Inventories (NFIs) in Europe. However, most existing continental or global land cover maps have a coarse spatial resolution that is not matched to the small area of the sampling units applied by the NFIs, which makes them not suited for this type of reference data. The fine spatial resolution of the FMAP2006 facilitated the label assignment of the field reference plots to the pixels for the validation process. More than one million reference plots were available for validation, distributed across 17 countries in Europe. In contrast to previous validations of land cover products at this scale, the current sample size of the reference data allowed for a reliable assessment at local, regional and pan-European level.

KEMPENEERS Pieter;  MC INERNEY Daniel;  SEDANO Fernando;  GALLEGO Javier;  STROBL Peter;  KAY Simon;  KOHONEN Kari;  SAN-MIGUEL-AYANZ Jesus; 

2014-07-22

IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC

JRC70125

1939-1404,   

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC70125,   

10.1109/JSTARS.2012.2236079,