Abstract:
In the context of global warming, the study of the long-term spatial change characteristics of the boreal forest cover not only is important for global climate change and sustainable development research but also can provide the support for the further research on the response of the boreal forest changes to climate change.The five-phase Landsat TM/OLI images from 1980 to 2020 were used as the data source based on the map platform to select the country Finland as the boreal forest study area, and the multispectral vegetation index and tasseled cap transformation were used to constitute the special classification feature set, combined with the random forest algorithm to obtain the five-phase forest cover map of the study area, and the classification accuracy was verified using the test sample points and randomly selected points from the Gaofen 2 and 7 (GF-2 and GF-7)images with a classification accuracy of 97.17% and 88.90%.The 5-phase forest cover images were segmented by 2° latitude zone, and the spatial and temporal dynamic changes of forest cover in the whole area and each latitude zone were quantified by pixel superposition analysis. The results showed that in the past 40 years, the boreal forest cover in Finland had a significant change, and the forest cover decreased from 75.79% to 65.36%, decreasing by 10.43%. The highest reduction in forest area was observed in the 62°~64°N area, with a decrease of 10.24%. The highest change rate in coverage was observed in the 68°~70°N area, with a decrease of 15.28%. The forest coverage in each latitude zone has decreased to varying degrees, with higher changes occurring in high latitude areas above 64°N between 1980 and 2000, and higher and more severe changes occurring in low latitude areas below 64°N between 2000 and 2020. However, there are signs of warming up in forest growth in high-latitude regions, with some mountainous areas growing new forests in perennial bare soil areas. Climate change may make the northern part of the study area more suitable for forest growth.