Department of Environment

Vegetation change Mekong River

Quantification of vegetation change in upper and middle Mekong River watershed using spaceborne remote sensing data

Funded by: VLIR South Programme

Research associate: Zhang Zhiming

Promoter: Robert De Wulf

Duration: 2003-2010

 

Project objectives

  1. Developing a procedure to produce, multi-temporal vegetation maps for the two mountainous areas, with special emphasis on high accuracies of these maps and spatial resolution requirements;
  2. Accurately detecting vegetation change in the two study areas, with special emphasis on vegetation transitions (from-to change);
  3. Quantifying vegetation changes for the two mountainous areas, and understand the vegetation change processes (disturbance and fragmentation);
  4. Analysing the correlations between vegetation changes and the driving forces (i.e. topography factors, socio-economic factors, and policies), and quantifying and modelling the driving forces behind these changes;
  5. Modelling and predicting vegetation change by integrating the driving forces.

Two key publications

Zhang, Z., Van Coillie, F., De Clercq, E., Ou, X., and De Wulf, R. “Mountain Vegetation Change Quantification Using Surface Landscape Metrics in Lancang Watershed, China.” ECOLOGICAL INDICATORS 31 (2013): 49–58.

Zhang, Z., Van Coillie, F., Ou, X.,  and De Wulf, R.,. “Integration of Satellite Imagery, Topography and Human Disturbance Factors Based on Canonical Correspondence Analysis Ordination for Mountain Vegetation Mapping: a Case Study in Yunnan, China.” REMOTE SENSING 6.2 (2014): 1026–1056.