AGE ESTIMATION TECHNIQUE OF INDUSTRIALIZED TIMBER PLANTATION USING VARIOUS REMOTE SENSING DATA

Timber stand age information of timber in industrialized plantation forest is generally collected by field surveying which is labor-intensive, time-consuming, and very costly. It is also inconsistent in analyses perspective. As an alternative, The objective of this research is to present a practical solution for estimating timber age of loblolly pine plantation using Landsat thematic mapper (TM) images, shuttle radar topography mission (SRTM), and national elevation dataset (NED). A multivariate regression model was developed based upon satellite image-based information (i.e.normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), tasseled cap (TC) transformation, and derived tree heights). A residual studentized technique was applied to remove potential outliers. After that, a refined age estimation model with a correlation coefficient R-square of 84.6% was obtained. Finally, the feasibility test of estimated model was performed by comparing estimated and measured stand ages of timber plantations using test datasets of plantation stands (2,032 stands). The result shows that the proposed method of this study can estimate loblolly pine stand age within an error of $2{\sim}3$ years in an effective and consistent way in terms of time and cost.