Forest mapping a case study of Southern Highlands of Tanzania

Abstract

Forest mapping is one of the major areas where we try to understand the key elements of forest. Different researchers study this using different geospatial tools and its application in the planning and management of the resources. Always this process needs good and accurate understanding of the various forest parameters. This present study focuses on studying forest plantations of Southern Highlands in Tanzania. The data used was collected in three pilot areas; Njombe, Makete and Kilolo. We study the age of the plantation in relation to satellite data. Landsat 8 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus ETM+ of three different years has been used in collecting the data from the three pilot areas. The Sparse Bayesian method has been applied as a modelling tool in studying the correlation between plantation age and satellite data. Plantation age has been grouped in three classes; young 0-3, growing 3-8 and old >8. The results shows that there is very little correlation between the age of plantation forest and satellite data.