Hopp til hovedinnholdet

Publications

NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.

2025

To document

Abstract

Urban green structures (UGS) play important roles in enhancing urban ecosystems by providing benefits such as mitigating the urban heat island effect, improving air quality, supporting biodiversity, and aiding in stormwater management. Accurately mapping UGS is important for sustainable urban planning and management. Traditional methods of mapping such as manual mapping, aerial photography interpretation and pixel-based classification have limitations in terms of coverage, accuracy, and efficiency. Object-based image analysis (OBIA) has gained prominence due to its ability to incorporate both spectral and spatial information making it particularly effective for classification of high-resolution satellite data. This paper reviews the application of OBIA on satellite images for UGS mapping, focusing on various data sources, popular segmentation methods, and classification techniques, highlighting their respective advantages and limitations. Key segmentation methodologies discussed include multi-resolution segmentation and watershed segmentation. For classification, the review covers machine learning techniques such as random forests, support vector machines, and convolutional neural networks, among others. Several case studies highlight the successful implementation of OBIA in diverse urban environments by demonstrating improvements in classification accuracy and detail. The review also addresses the challenges associated with OBIA, such as dealing with heterogenous urban landscapes, data sources and with OBIA methods itself. Future directions for UGS mapping include the integration of deep learning algorithms, advancements in satellite data technologies, and the development of standardized classification frameworks. By providing a detailed analysis of the current state-of-the-art in object-based UGS mapping, this review aims to guide future research and practical applications in UGS management.

2024

To document

Abstract

Forests play a major role in the mitigation of avalanche risk in Norway, but the regulations surrounding the management of “protection forests” are still being worked out. To promote protection forest management, avalanche hazard indication maps for Norway have been produced with the automated mapping tool NAKSIN in a way that makes it possible to quantity the effects of the current forests in a spatially explicit way. NAKSIN makes use of published relations for forest effects on snow properties and uses national models of forest characteristics to estimate the effects on release probability and runout given local climate and topography. The forest properties contain parameters that are directly measured (canopy cover), and properties that are predicted (tree diameter, number of trees) with approximately 70% precision according to ground truth data. NAKSIN uses these forest properties in long chains of models, comprising of both mechanistic and empirical elements, some of which are iterated over timesteps during avalanche flow. This means that errors could be propagated throughout those model chains in unexpected ways. The aim of this study was to conduct a sensitivity analysis to examine the effects of errors in the forest data for hazard mapping in a relevant case study region in fjordic western Norway. We examined hazard maps produced using 95% prediction errors for tree diameter and the number of trees per hectare to determine if these would dramatically affect the hazard zones. These hazard maps focused on runout properties as common release areas were implied for avalanches through a common forest canopy cover percentage applied across the two extreme scenarios. Across the entire region, the hazard zones were generally stable with respect to potential errors in the forest data, suggesting the approach is robust and the braking effect of forest is not overstated. There was one exception, where the prediction errors could reduce the forest braking function to negligible. This exception was easy to identify from the difference in hazard zones and the process allows us to consider where more precise measurements of forests could be required in areas with high consequences. The implications of various approaches to estimate forest leaf area index, and how this might impact on release probability are illustrated to further consider this in the next steps of this research.