Monitoring the Land Use Type and Forest Vegetation Changes Using Aerial Photograph and GIS
Kec-Hyun CHUNG• Woo-Kyun LEE• Woo-Beum SHJM

 

ABSTRACT : In this study, land use type and forest vegetation changes in about 500ha mountain area located in Kwangjugun, Kyonggi Province, Korea were momtored with help of landscapeecological approach using aerial photographs taken with scale 1 · 15,000 in 1974. 1980, 1992 and GIS tools. Land use and forest type of each year were classified through interpreting he aenal photographs and were transferred to the topographical map with 1 : 5,000 scale. aps of each year were scanned, vectorized using cadcore and digitalized with Arc/Info. Corresponding attribute data consist of land use and forest type, age class and crown closure were prepared also using Arc/Info. To analyze the natural reforestation processes in marginal agricultural land where was once a rice fields with wet soil, terrestrial inventories were performed in these reforested marginal land and neighbor forests . Vegetation structures were analyzed from the importance value and the diversity index of each species measured. Agricultural land area decreased from 21°o in 1974 to 17% in 1992 while forests area increased from 79% in 1974 to 81% in 1992, respectively. Wild grassland area resulted from marginal agricultural land increased from 0.08% in 1974 to 0.53% in 1992. This wild grassland is expected to be forested with time. Crown closure improved significantly. Sparse stands
decreased drastically from 31% in 1974 to 5~o in 1992 while dense stands increased from 36% in 1974 to 68% in 1992, respectively. Vegetation structure in reforested marginal land stairsstyled, flat and wet was different from that of neighbor forests. In neighbor forests, Quercus mongolica, Q. variabi/is, Q. dentata, Pn.mus sargentii and Fraxinus rhynchophylla appeared dominantly. In contrast, Acer ginna/a, Salix koreensis and S. glandulosa were listed as the
dominant species in reforested marginal land, where A. gimtala was dominant understory species and S. koreensis, S. glandulosa were major overstory species. In this case, vegetation characteristics of reforested marginal land were not influenced by vegetation of neighbor forests.

 

Key words : land use changes, forest vegetation changes, landscape ecology, vegetation structures,
importance value, diversity index, terrestrial inventories, aerial photographs, GIS