{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,19]],"date-time":"2026-02-19T07:09:02Z","timestamp":1771484942357,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":48,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"5","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2017,5,14]],"date-time":"2017-05-14T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1494720000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["IJGI"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Forests play an important role in maintaining ecosystem services, especially in ecologically fragile areas such as the Loess Plateau (LP) in China. However, there is still great uncertainty in the spatial extent and distribution of forests in such a fragmented region. In order to examine the advantages and disadvantages of existing forest mapping products, we conducted a thorough accuracy assessment on the eight recent, medium resolution (30\u201350 m) products by using the LP in 2010 as the region of interest. These mapping products include Landsat and\/or PALSAR images (including the forest products from GlobeLand30), FROM-GLC, Hansen, ChinaCover, NLCD-China, GLCF VCF, OU-FDL, and JAXA. The same validation data were used to assess and rank the accuracy of each product. Additionally, the spatial consistency of the different forest products and their dependence on the terrain were analyzed. The results showed that the overall accuracies of the eight forest products on the LP in 2010 were between 0.93 \u00b1 0.003 and 0.97 \u00b1 0.002 with a 95% confidence interval, and GlobeLand30 presented the highest overall accuracy (0.97 \u00b1 0.002). Among them, the PALSAR-based products (OU-FDL and JAXA) indicated relatively high accuracies, while the six Landsat-based products showed a large diversity in the accuracy. According to the eight products, the total estimated forest area of the LP varied from 7.627 \u00b1 0.077 to 10.196 \u00b1 0.1 million ha with a 95% confidence interval. We also found that the consistency in the spatial distribution of forests between these maps: 1) increased substantially with increasing elevation until 2000m, but then decreased at higher elevations, and 2) showed mild variation along increasing slope, but had a slight rate of increase. Our findings implied that future forest mapping studies should consider topographical attributes such as elevation and slope in their final products. Our results are fundamental in guiding future applications of these existing forest maps.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/ijgi6050152","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2017,5,15]],"date-time":"2017-05-15T12:16:12Z","timestamp":1494850572000},"page":"152","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":29,"title":["Accuracy Assessment and Inter-Comparison of Eight Medium Resolution Forest Products on the Loess Plateau, China"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"6","author":[{"given":"Zhiqi","family":"Yang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Earth Sciences and Resources, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083 China"},{"name":"Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5687-803X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jinwei","family":"Dong","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China"},{"name":"University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Jiyuan","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Jun","family":"Zhai","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Satellite Environment Center, Ministry of Environmental Protection, Beijing 100094, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Wenhui","family":"Kuang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Guosong","family":"Zhao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Wei","family":"Shen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Earth Sciences and Resources, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083 China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5272-1158","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yan","family":"Zhou","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Earth Sciences and Resources, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083 China"},{"name":"Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Yuanwei","family":"Qin","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, and Center for Spatial Analysis, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0956-7428","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"and Xiangming","family":"Xiao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, and Center for Spatial Analysis, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019, USA"},{"name":"Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, Institute of Biodiversity Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200438, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2017,5,14]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"570","DOI":"10.1126\/science.1111772","article-title":"Global consequences of land use","volume":"309","author":"Foley","year":"2005","journal-title":"Science"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"378","DOI":"10.1038\/nature10425","article-title":"Primary forests are irreplaceable for sustaining tropical biodiversity","volume":"478","author":"Gibson","year":"2011","journal-title":"Nature"},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"9899","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.1019576108","article-title":"Benchmark map of forest carbon stocks in tropical regions across three continents","volume":"108","author":"Saatchi","year":"2011","journal-title":"Proc. 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