TY - JOUR A2 - Campagnaro, Thomas AU - Nguyen, The Dung AU - Kappas, Martin PY - 2020 DA - 2020/08/27 TI - Estimating the Aboveground Biomass of an Evergreen Broadleaf Forest in Xuan Lien Nature Reserve, Thanh Hoa, Vietnam, Using SPOT-6 Data and the Random Forest Algorithm SP - 4216160 VL - 2020 AB - Forest biomass is an important ecological indicator for the sustainable management of forests. The aim of this study was to estimate forest aboveground biomass (AGB) by integrating SPOT-6 data with field-based measurements using the random forest (RF) algorithm. In total, 52 remote sensing variables, including spectral bands, vegetation indices, topography data, and textures, were extracted from SPOT-6 images to predict the forest AGB of Xuan Lien Nature Reserve, Vietnam. To determine the optimal predictor variables for AGB estimation, 10 different RF models were built. To evaluate these models, 10-fold cross-validation was applied. We found that a combination of spectral and vegetation indices and topography variables offer the highest prediction results (Radj2  = 0.74 and RMSE = 61.24 Mg ha−1). Adding texture features into the predictor variables did not improve the model performance. In addition, the SPOT-6 sensor has the potential to predict forest AGB using the RF algorithm. SN - 1687-9368 UR - https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/4216160 DO - 10.1155/2020/4216160 JF - International Journal of Forestry Research PB - Hindawi KW - ER -