PARENT SESSION
Poster Session 15: Urban Ecology
Tuesday, August 9, 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM, Exhibit Hall 220 A-E, Level 2, Palais des congrès de Montréal

Extraction of detailed distribution characteristics of vegetation cover in Tokyo by using high-resolution satellite images.

Hashiba, Hideki ^*,1, ¹ Dept. of Civil Engrg., College of Sci. and Tech., Nihon University., Tokyo, JAPAN

ABSTRACT- It is necessary to maintain the ecology of the city by using its vegetation to create the future city environment. However due to artificial development, the vegetation environment has decreased remarkably in the major cities of East Asia including Tokyo, Japan's capital city. An appropriate current evaluation regarding the distribution characteristics of vegetation in such a city and its circumference is desirable for the environmental preservation of ecology. Unfortunately the vegetation distribution in a wide area of Tokyo has not been sufficiently clarified because the direct measurement of the area of the trees and the green tract of land is very difficult using past methods. However as a high-resolution satellite image is now being used effectively, the detailed vegetation distribution is becoming clearer. The author has been examining the extraction method of the vegetation distribution in Tokyo where the high-resolution satellite image of 1m×1m spatial resolution so far has been used. This is an extraction technique of the vegetation distribution that unites the vegetation index value obtained from the high-resolution satellite image with the land cover classification method. By using this method, it is finally possible to extract a detailed vegetation distribution.In this research, the technique examined so far was applied to investigate the features of wide-ranging vegetation distribution in the city region. Here both the IKONOS satellite image and the Quickbird satellite image were used. As a result, a feature difference was recognized in the characteristic of the vegetation distribution in the central area of Tokyo as compared to its peripheral business district and residential area. That is, the tendency towards irregular distribution of vegetation was shown in a peripheral region as opposed to the regular distribution shown in the center of Tokyo.

Key words: Urban environment, Vegetation, Tree, High resolution satellite image