The potential contribution of pixel-based canopy change information to stand-based forest management in the northern US

A study of the methods used to detect changes in the forest canopy in north central Minnesota shows that digital monitoring is able to detect changes in the forest stands and pixel based change information provides useful sub-stand information about canopy changes. A stand is a piece of land in which conditions do not change with respect to specific management objectives. The change maps formed by Landsat Thematic Mapper show that the variations in the data obtained from digital change classification are not errors, but reflect sub-stand information that can either be incorporated into the study or corrected for.