Abstract
This paper describes the characteristics of high resolution satellite data, methods to observe single trees and forest stands using it, and the results of previous studies. It also introduces its applications and discusses problems and future directions. High resolution satellite data can be used to observe individual trees, to identify treetops by local maximum filtering, and to segment individual tree crowns by the watershed method or the valley-following method. Since digital numbers of satellite data show different values even in a forest stand of the same species depending on the relationship between the position of the sun and the direction of the tree crown surface, object-oriented classification is recently used for extracting forest information. High resolution satellite data have been mainly used for urgent issues such as forest damages and in cases when it is difficult to obtain information in fields. Though the problems as optical sensor still remain, information, which are obtained from high resolution satellite data, certainly increase by the advance of sensor resolution. I consider that it is important to accumulate experiences on its analysis from a viewpoint of drawing such information practically and coping actual issues.
