The aim of the paper is mountain forest landuse/cover changes analysis due to anthropogenic and climatic stressors. Our analysis indicates a potentially application of threshold techniques to land-cover classification and changes analysis due to climatic effects for Romanian Carpathian mountain forest ecosystem. The climate of the Carpathians is moderately cool and humid, with both temperature and precipitation strongly correlated with elevation. Extreme climatic events and anthropogenic effects have a strong impact on forest ecosystem. Specific aim of this paper is to assess, forecast, and mitigate the risks of air pollution and climatic changes and extreme events on mountain forest ecosystem in Prahova Valley, Romanian Carpathians test area and to provide early warning strategies on the basis of spectral information derived from Landsat TM, ETM and MODIS satellite data over 1987- 2007 period. The paper aims to describe observed trends and potential impacts based on scenarios from simulations with regional climate models and other downscaling procedures.

Date Published: 2 October 2008
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 7104, Remote Sensing for Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Hydrology X, 71040Z (2 October 2008); doi: 10.1117/12.799937

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7104:
Remote Sensing for Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Hydrology X
Christopher M. U. Neale; Manfred Owe; Guido D'Urso, Editor(s)