Sentinel-2 Imagery for Mapping Cork Oak (Quercus suber L.) Distribution in Calabria (Italy): Capabilities and Quantitative Estimation

The goal of this paper refers to the potential in using new Sentinel-2 (S-2) remote sensing imagery and in situ surveying for mapping Cork oak (Quercus suber L.) woodlands in Calabria Region (Southern Italy), comparing them to other satellite platforms such as Landsat 8 operational land imager (L8 OLI). Considering that S-2 spectral bands are particularly suitable for estimating different vegetation cover characteristics, we propose a methodology for mapping the actual consistence of this habitat, using the vegetation spectral reflectance to evaluate cork oak spectral response. A set of different S-2 and L8 OLI scenes where freely downloaded and pre-processed (topographic and atmospheric correction, band anomaly detection) in order to better investigate cork oak spectral signature. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and ND Red Edge index where calculated to obtain a high spectral resolution vegetation mask. Digital Elevation Model (DEM), signature training sets, Ground Control Points (GCPs) and ancillary data where used to perform a supervised classification of both S-2 and L8 OLI images. Furthermore, an accuracy assessment was applied to the classified images in order to evaluate user's and producer's accuracies. S-2 provides a great opportunity for global vegetation monitoring due to its enhanced spatial, spectral and temporal characteristics compared with Landsat.