Assessing Trees Canopy Cover by Using Ikonos Satellite Imagery Retrieved from Google Earth and Field Measurements (Case Study: Iran; Sari)

One of the most important information in urban forestry is acquaintance of urban landscape’s area or proportion. Nowadays, in several countries variable methods are used to achieve this aim. Since there is not any complete method to study urban forest’s status in IRAN, it is impossible to exert authentic management for these resources. Hence, in this research, sampling methods and Ikonos satellite imagery in Google Earth software were used to assess the area of road trees’ canopy cover for evaluating the accuracy of satellite images in road trees’ canopy cover estimation. Besides, random sampling was used as the base of comparison, the crown of trees’ in street margins was calculated. Afterwards, canopy of these trees in satellite images scale 1/2000 was accounted. In this study, the georeference and perform the geometric correction of the image in ENVI software, environment action provide cover and area of each of the trees on the street. The results of double t-test showed (df = 118, t =1.69) that the outcomes of two calculation methods do not have any significant difference (95%). Also the result of regression analysis showed that satellite images usage in road trees’ crown is become (R2=0.95). Thereupon, with results of this research assessing urban forest canopy cover using Ikonos satellite imagery in Google Earth software can be proposed to calculate the total canopy cover of road trees and optimum management of them and increased awareness of changes in these valuable resources in short periods of time.