Climatic potential productivity and an IRS-1CWiFS image in Natural Park Los Alcornocales. Relationship with the standing forest biomass

Abstract

It is studied the use of the Map of Forest Potential Productivity of Spain as information in base to which classify an Indian IRS-1C WiFS satellite image in Los Alcornocales Natural Park (Andalucía, Spain), a large forest area covered by natural forests of Mediterranean broadleaved species, mainly cork oak (Quercus suber L.). Grouping the classes of climatic potential productivity of this map were obtained three macroclasses that resulted significantly different among them at the 99% confidence level for the visible and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) of theWiFS image. It was built a classifier using these macroclasses of climatic potential productivity as ground truth areas. By maximum likelihood supervised classification of the NDVI were obtained classes who resulted significantly different among them at the 90%confidence level for the basal area from the Second Spanish National Forest Inventory ground plots located in the park.