THE USE OF LANDSAT SATELLITE IMAGES FOR ECONOMIC DAMAGE ASSESSMENT TO FORESTRY OF MORDOVIA DUE TO A FOREST WINDFALL

Abstract

The damage caused by extreme weather events in some years exceeds the amount of logging even in areas of intensive forest management. So, on the example of the studied object on whose territory a windfall formed as a result of a squally wind, it has been shown as a rapid identification and assessment of damaged forest areas allows one to carry out effective measures for forest protection and/or restoration. In its turn, the untimely information on negative changes in the forests may lead to a decrease in efficiency of sanitary and preventive measures and cause subsequent outbreaks of insect pests and increased fire danger.The aim of our work is the mapping of the spatial distribution of forest windfall sites on the territory of Staroshaigovskoe district forestry of Saransk territorial forestry. As the source of information we used not only remote sensing data but also the results of the ground surveys of forest pest damaged areas. IsoData method was used for the unsupervised classification of images.Only in the study area the damage was nearly 300 ha of stands, totally lost as a result of windfalls, which makes 1.5% of the district forestry area. Analysis of the features of spatial distribution of windfalls in the study area has been made, and based on actual source data a map has been compiled showing the distribution of the windfall formed on lands of the forest Fund as a result of a squally wind on the territory of the Republic of Mordovia on 21 June 2015, and the economic damages to forestry of the studied object calculated. A selective estimation of species composition and age structure of stands affected by forest windfalls has been made.

Keywords

• forest windfall
• mapping
• remote sensing