<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>Ever-evolving technologies are enabling us to obtain information about the world around us ever more quickly and precisely. This state of affairs contributes to the growing need to store and analyse data. For today’s scientists, this is a challenge because it involves analyses on a global scale. This also applies to spatial data, vast amounts of which are made available online. The Google Earth Engine platform is such a place on the web. It is not just a catalogue for browsing, but above all an environment for programming useful applications. Among free software, it is difficult to find one that is not dependent on the parameters of the computer. In the case of Google Earth Engine, the processes programmed by the user are executed on powerful external servers, and the user only gets the finished result, which he can download to his computer and use in further work. The initial chapters introduce the basic concepts and characterise the specifics of working in this environment, taking into account the limitations of the platform. Then, the individual stages of the algorithm developed by the authors are described, trying to explain well the reasons for the use of particular methods and functions. In order to verify the correctness of the obtained results, existing databases on the subject and published research results of other authors were used.</p>
</abstract>

Ever-evolving technologies are enabling us to obtain information about the world around us ever more quickly and precisely. This state of affairs contributes to the growing need to store and analyse data. For today’s scientists, this is a challenge because it involves analyses on a global scale. This also applies to spatial data, vast amounts of which are made available online. The Google Earth Engine platform is such a place on the web. It is not just a catalogue for browsing, but above all an environment for programming useful applications. Among free software, it is difficult to find one that is not dependent on the parameters of the computer. In the case of Google Earth Engine, the processes programmed by the user are executed on powerful external servers, and the user only gets the finished result, which he can download to his computer and use in further work. The initial chapters introduce the basic concepts and characterise the specifics of working in this environment, taking into account the limitations of the platform. Then, the individual stages of the algorithm developed by the authors are described, trying to explain well the reasons for the use of particular methods and functions. In order to verify the correctness of the obtained results, existing databases on the subject and published research results of other authors were used.

Accuracy of the evaluation of forest areas based on Landsat data using free software

Folia Forestalia Polonica

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Ever-evolving technologies are enabling us to obtain information about the world around us ever more quickly and precisely. This state of affairs contributes...

Source	Forest area [ha]	Carpathian area [ha]	Forest cover coefficient [%]	Topicality
Google Earth Engine	910 149	1 939 010	46.9	2013
Forest Data Bank	772 884	1 937 602	39.9	2013
Corine Land Cover	934 494	1 937 602	48.2	2012

	Forest	Water	Other area	Built-up area
Forest	13 302	0	313	5
Water	6	13 247	45	45
Other areas	541	14	7599	90
Built-up area	1	10	143	723

	Class 0	Class 1	Class 2	Class 3
Class 0	n₀₀	n₀₁	n₀₂	n₁₃
Class 1	n₁₀	n₁₁	n₁₂	n₂₃
Class 2	n₂₀	n₂₁	n₂₂	n₂₃
Class 3	n₃₀	n₃₁	n₃₂	n₃₃

Class	Manufacturer accuracy	User accuracy
Forest	0.976	0.960
Water	0.993	0.998
Other	0.922	0.938
Construction	0.824	0.837
Overall accuracy	0.966
Kappa	0.950

Accuracy of the evaluation of forest areas based on Landsat data using free software

Article Category: ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Online veröffentlicht: 12. Juni 2023

Seitenbereich: 76 - 85

Eingereicht: 21. Nov. 2022

Akzeptiert: 27. Feb. 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ffp-2023-0008

© 2023 Paulina Zając et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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Figure 8.

Results comparison with other sources

Error matrix for validation data

Classification error matrix in Google Earth Engine

Results of the accuracy analysis