Bibliographic record
Abstract
Coarse woody debris (CWD) are vital components of forested environments, affecting the physical structure and biochemistry of forests, supplying habitats, nutrients and food for many organisms. Additionally, CWD is an especially important element in boreal forest management in Alberta, Canada. Large quantities of CWD can configure a fire hazard, whereas moderate quantities of CWD in linear disturbances can aid newly planted seedlings to survive and hinder the hunting effectiveness of predators of endangered caribou herds. Forest managers and ecologists can benefit from large-scale high-accuracy quantitative mapping of CWD in complex boreal environments. This thesis represents the first high-resolution remote sensing study of CWD within the context of Alberta’s boreal forest. The research conducted here tested the effectiveness of a geographical object-based image analysis (GEOBIA) workflow with random forest classification for mapping CWD logs and snags in a 4300-hectare study area in northeastern Alberta, Canada. Additionally, zero-adjusted models were selected for accurate estimation of CWD volume in the study area using Akaike’s information criterion. The developed models successfully mapped (up to 93.4% completeness and 94.5% correctness) and estimated volume of CWD (0.623 R2, 0.224 RMSE) with good accuracies. Light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data improved the distinction between logs and snags in CWD maps (~6% better distinction; significant at α 0.05), and multispectral LiDAR data improved the estimation of CWD volume occluded by superimposed vegetation (~ 0.1 higher R2 and ~0.018 lower RMSE). Models developed in a calibration area could be applied to a verification area 4 km distant from all training data without substantial differences in accuracy (average 9% drop in mapping accuracy, no decrease in R2 or increase in RMSE when estimating volume). Given the potential of emerging multispectral LiDAR technologies, it is likely that future improvements to sensors will make ever more accurate CWD predictions possible. Site managers, as well as ecologists and foresters interested in studying the spatiality of CWD can make use of the developed workflows to obtain accurate and extensive map products in forested areas.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".