The Multisource Vegetation Inventory (MVI): a satellite-based forest inventory for the Northwest Territories taiga plains

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dc.contributor.authorCastilla, Guillermo
dc.contributor.authorHall, Ronald J.
dc.contributor.authorSkakun, Rob
dc.contributor.authorFiliatrault, Michelle
dc.contributor.authorBeaudoin, André
dc.contributor.authorGartrell, Michael
dc.contributor.authorSmith, Lisa
dc.contributor.authorGroenewegen, Kathleen
dc.contributor.authorHopkinson, Christopher
dc.contributor.authorvan der Sluijs, Jurjen
dc.date.accessioned2025-07-22T21:58:03Z
dc.date.available2025-07-22T21:58:03Z
dc.date.issued2022
dc.descriptionOpen access article. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0) applies
dc.description.abstractSustainable forest management requires information on the spatial distribution, composition, and structure of forests. However, jurisdictions with large tracts of noncommercial forest, such as the Northwest Territories (NWT) of Canada, often lack detailed forest information across their land base. The goal of the Multisource Vegetation Inventory (MVI) project was to create a large area forest inventory (FI) map that could support strategic forest management in the NWT using optical, radar, and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) satellite remote sensing anchored on limited field plots and airborne LiDAR data. A new landcover map based on Landsat imagery was the first step to stratify forestland into broad forest types. A modelling chain linking FI plots to airborne and spaceborne LiDAR was then developed to circumvent the scarcity of field data in the region. The developed models allowed the estimation of forest attributes in thousands of surrogate FI plots corresponding to spaceborne LiDAR footprints distributed across the project area. The surrogate plots were used as a reference dataset for estimating each forest attribute in each 30 m forest cell within the project area. The estimation was based on the k-nearest neighbour (k-NN) algorithm, where the selection of the four most similar surrogate FI plots to each cell was based on satellite, topographic, and climatic data. Wall-to-wall 30 m raster maps of broad forest type, stand height, crown closure, stand volume, total volume, aboveground biomass, and stand age were created for a ~400,000 km2 area, validated with independent data, and generalized into a polygon GIS layer resembling a traditional FI map. The MVI project showed that a reasonably accurate FI map for large, remote, predominantly non-inventoried boreal regions can be obtained at a low cost by combining limited field data with remote sensing data from multiple sources.
dc.description.peer-reviewYes
dc.identifier.citationCastilla, G., Hall, R. J., Skakun, R., Filiatrault, M., Beaudoin, A., Gartrell, M., Smith, L., Groenewegen, K., Hopkinson, C., & van der Sluijs, J. (2022). The Multisource Vegetation Inventory (MVI): A satellite-based forest inventory for the Northwest Territories taiga plains. Remote Sensing, 14(5), Article 1108. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14051108
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10133/7080
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherMDPI
dc.publisher.departmentDepartment of Geography and Environment
dc.publisher.facultyArts and Science
dc.publisher.institutionNorthern Forestry Centre
dc.publisher.institutionLaurentian Forestry Centre
dc.publisher.institutionDepartment of Environment and Natural Resources
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Lethbridge
dc.publisher.institutionNWT Centre for Geomatics
dc.publisher.urlhttps://doi.org/10.3390/rs14051108
dc.subjectForest vegetation inventory
dc.subjectLiDAR
dc.subjectGLAS\
dc.subjectLandsat
dc.subjectPALSAR-1
dc.subjectk-NN
dc.subjectBoreal forest
dc.subjectNorthwest Territories
dc.subject.lcshForest management--Northwest Territories
dc.titleThe Multisource Vegetation Inventory (MVI): a satellite-based forest inventory for the Northwest Territories taiga plains
dc.typeArticle
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