Laboratory for
Climatology and Remote Sensing

Abstract:

Up until now montane cloud forest (MCF) in Taiwan has only been mapped for selected areas of vegetation plots. This thesis presents the first comprehensive map of MCF distribution for the entire island. For its creation, a Random Forest model was trained with vegetation plots from the National Vegetation Database of Taiwan that were classified as “MCF” or “non-MCF”. This model predicted the distribution of MCF from a raster data set of parameters derived from a digital elevation model (DEM), Landsat channels and texture measures derived from them as well as ground fog frequency data. The latter have been derived from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). For the detection of ground fog in MODIS imagery a new algorithm has been developed. It does not rely on cloud microphysical assumptions and was validated using camera data.