Evaluating the Potential of the PROBA-V Sensor in Estimating Forest Cover Change Over a Range of European Biogeographical Regions: The FM@PROBA-V Project

The PROBA-V mission is designed to replace the VEGETATION instruments onboard the SPOT-4 and SPOT-5 satellites and ensure data continuity for the VEGETATION users until the launch of the Sentinel-2 series, as well as compliment data provision, even after the Sentinel-2 series become fully operational. In addition, the PROBA-V mission will offer data at a higher spatial resolution, while maintaining the spectral coverage and near daily global coverage of its predecessor. Amongst the various applications that VEGETATION data have seen over the past 15 years, forest monitoring had been one of the most prominent ones. The FM@PROBA-V project, funded by the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO), achieved three objectives in an effort to quantify the improvements on forest monitoring brought along with the increase of the spatial resolution by the new sensor: a) it provided an estimate of European forest cover with 300, 600, and 1000 meter resolution data, b) it evaluated a number of popular classification methods on VEGETATION and MODIS 250 meter data serving as a substitute of PROBA-V data due to the similar spatial resolution on five test sites representing different iogeographical regions of Europe, and c) assessed the two sensors in their capacity in mapping forest cover changes caused by disastrous events, such as forest fires and wind damage. The results suggest that the increased spatial resolution will offer an opportunity for more accurate forest monitoring at global, continental, and regional scale, particularly on highly fragmented landscapes.