167
Forest present only in 1983
Forest present only in 1954
Forest present both in 1954 and in 1983
Non forest area
4. RESULTS
A new automatic forest area recognition technique has
been deveioped and tested. This procedure has proved
to be effective for the automatic detection of the forest
coverage using aerial photographs. This technique can
be used to estimate the extension of the forest changes
overtime.
A skilled operator is able to perform the whole operation
in a very short time, especially compared to traditional
techniques. The procedure consists in an image
classification carried out for each image followed by a
supervised homogenization which has permitted to
accurately detect the real forest coverage per each
image.
There is a well known growth trend but its extension
has never been evaluated exactly The results can be
used as an input for further analysis such as
economical, sociological and biological studies. These
studies have been carried out but they are not reported
here. Nevertheless, it is very interesting to mention that
an exact correspondence between the forest area
coverage increase and the population decrease has
been observed.
A precise knowledge of the forest coverage evolution is
very precious to enhance forest and landscape
management criteria. It can also be combined with
demographic information to better explain landscape
change.
Fig 14 Forestarea change 1954-1983.
