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3.5 Mixed Forestry<br />
Figure 8: Typical Mixed Forestry Area Image<br />
This part of the study looks at the spectral values for areas of mixed forestry. It is<br />
not concerned with finding a set of unique attributes which would uniquely<br />
identify this type of land cover from an aerial photograph, but is intended to<br />
investigate if values corresponding to this type of cover could be separated from<br />
those of rough pasture.<br />
One reason for attempting to differentiate between areas of mixed forestry and<br />
rough pasture is the age of the surface cover. Mixed forestry generally includes<br />
sections of native woodland, which is slow growing and can be assumed to be an<br />
area capable of supporting wildlife (it is also less prone to change than rough<br />
pasture; due to the difficulty in obtaining permission to clear this type of<br />
woodland). Any study looking at the wildlife corridors across the country would<br />
benefit from an automatic method of distinguishing smaller linear sections of this<br />
type of ground cover (along hedges etc.) from other land use types. As is<br />
evidenced below by the similarity between the results of this to those from an<br />
analysis of rough pasture this remains difficult to do. There is also not much scope<br />
for pattern recognition algorithms to be used in the detection of isolated sections<br />
of mixed forestry (outside those captured by conventional mapping) because of<br />
the seemingly random nature of the shade patterns. Note: An obvious solution is<br />
to fly the same areas at different times of the year and compare the red and near<br />
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