Symposium on Remote Sensing for Resources Development and Environmental Management / Enschede / August 1986 
521 
Remote sensing methods of monitoring the anthropogenic activities 
in the forest 
V.I.Sukhikh 
All-Union ’Lesprojekt’ Association, Moscow, USSR 
ABSTRACT* Main directions of the Earth*s remote sensing data use for the monitoring of the 
USSR forest fund changes caused by anthropogenic activities are considered* Indices charac 
terizing the accuracy of determining the parameters of the monitored units by aerial space 
photography and observations materials are listed* 
Large-scale works on developing and remaking 
of the whole regions and natural-territorial 
complexes are characteristic of the second 
half of the 20-th century. Such works are 
carried out in the USSR in the European-Ural 
zone, Western and Eastern Siberia, Far East, 
Middle Asia and Kazakhstan* National econo 
mic activities in these regions influence the 
forest fund and tree-shrub vegetation* The 
range of the anthropogenic activities having 
an influence on the forest dynamics and sta 
te is quite wide* It includes forest cutting 
and reforestation, drainage, securing forest 
growing, tree care, rock exploitation, civil 
and industrial construction, forest fires, 
agricultural development of the forest fund 
lands, industrial effluents, recreation,etc* 
The increasing versatile significance of 
the forest on the one hand and the growing 
anthropogenic influence on it on the other 
hand put before forestry management organs 
a primary and complicated task on the ratio 
nal use and reproduction of all types of fo 
rest resources and their useful properties* 
But in order to solve it objective timely 
information about the state of the tree-shr 
ub vegetation and about all the important 
changes in the forest fund is needed first 
of all. As the forest fund area is large and 
the access to it is difficult remote sensing 
means are widely used in the USSR in order 
to reveal, assess and take into account the 
changes which occur in it* New methods and 
technologies of forest study and control of 
their dynamics and state are being worked 
out, and the existing methods and technolo 
gies are being improved by means of the mo 
dem remote sensing means complex use, and 
development of interpretation and mapping 
methods• 
Information is obtained with space and avi 
ation observation means and ground spot in 
vestigations* To carry out the photography 
and monitoring from space artificial Earth 
satellite (AES) of the 'Meteor' and 'Kosmos' 
series, and long-term orbital 'Saljut' sta 
tions (LTOS) ensuring the getting of multi- 
zonal scanner and photographical information 
with the resolution of 20m to 100-30Qm and 
lkra are used, and instrumental-visual obser 
vations are carried out* Aviation means make 
it possible to obtain photographic informa 
tion with the ground resolution of several 
centimetres to tens of metres* 
In choosing means and methods of informa 
tion obtaining the optimization task is be 
ing solved: minimal labour (especially in 
the forest) and money expenditures, and maxi 
mal necessary information by the volume and 
quality* Space and aviation remote sensing 
materials must ensure the getting of the 
main information volume, and ground observa 
tions have to be carried out only in those 
cases when the remote sensing information 
is not complete* 
The greatest changes in the forest fund 
result from clear cutting which is carried 
out with the aim of logging and also clea 
ring of the forest fund territory in the 
process of economic development of the ter 
ritories* Forest cutting involves the neces 
sity of observing a number of rules regula 
ting its organization, conducting and refo 
restation on the cut areas* Hence the major 
task is the control of the forest exploita 
tion order which has to ensure the estimate 
of the harvest cutting rules observance, 
evenness of using in the region the forest 
fund of different qualitative state (in or 
der not to allow the immediate cutting of 
the best by quality forests); cutover area 
state assessment; specification of the re 
maining forest raw materials resources; de 
termination of the reforestation tendency 
and the course of young growth formation on 
the cutover areas* At present in order to 
solve all these questions methods the tech 
nical basis of which is the aerial photogra 
phy materials have been developed and tested* 
The method of control over the harvest cut 
ting rules observance is intended for the 
joint use of space photographs obtained from 
'Kosmos' artificial Earth satellites and 
'Saljut' long-term orbital stations* The com 
parison of space photos of different photo 
graphy years with forest management materi 
als, plans of cuttings and cuts, topographic 
maps make it possible to estimate the size 
of each separate cutover (its length, width, 
area), cutting techniques and their corres 
pondence to the forest protective < 
character 
category and site class; direction of cut 
overs, terms of their contiguity, number of 
first cuttings in the quarter, their loca 
tion relative to the relief forms, actual 
cutting terms; the degree of the young-gro 
wth safety, safety of the middle-age and 
ripening stands, temporal forest seedling 
plots* 
Cutting volumes are measured by space pho 
tos by measuring or automatized methods* The 
comparison of data obtained by photographs 
with the ground investigations results shows 
that the systematic errors of the cutting