Digital forest guide Flanders 2009

The Forest Guide is a land cover map of forest. De Boswijzer defines forest on the basis of the following criteria: (a) forest area at least 0,5 ha, (b) length/width ratio at least 2,5 and (c) closure rate at least 50%. This definition differs from the legal definition in the Forest Decree. The Boswijzer can therefore not be used as the only source to determine whether what is mapped as forest on the Boswijzer is also forest according to the definition ‘forest’ from the Forest Decree.The Boswijzer is not used to determine the forest area in Flanders. For this, the Flemish Forest Inventory is used that inventories the land use forest.With the Boswijzer, a forest mapping new style, digital aerial photography is used with very high resolution images that can be processed automatically. Commissioned by the Agency for Nature and Forests (ANB), the Services team of the Flanders Information Agency (AIV) carried out a segmentation classification of the mid-scale summer flight orthophotos from 2009 in order to realize the digital forest pointer.