ABSTRACT
Surface modeling refers to the process of simulating a surface by efficiently combining satellite remotely sensed data with ground-based observation data, such as a scattered point-form dataset, a line-form dataset, and/or an area-form dataset. Surface modeling formulates an object in a grid system (Yue 2011a). Each grid cell includes an estimate of the object that represents the characteristics for that particular location. There are four advantages to represent data in grid form (Martin and Bracken 1991; Deichmann 1996; Yue et al. 2008, 2009, 2010a,b): (1) a regular grid can be easily regrouped into any new aerial arrangement, (2) ecological data organized in a grid form can facilitate compatibility among heterogeneous datasets, (3) multiresolution and multisource information can be amalgamated more easily when data are in a grid
CONTENTS
18.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 519 18.2 Methods of Surface Modeling .......................................................................................... 521
18.2.1 Trend Surface Analysis ......................................................................................... 521 18.2.2Inverse Distance Weighted Method .................................................................... 521 18.2.3Triangulated Irregular Network ......................................................................... 521 18.2.4 Kriging .................................................................................................................... 522 18.2.5 Spline ....................................................................................................................... 522 18.2.6 YUE-HASM ............................................................................................................ 522
18.3Case Study: Surface Modeling for Forest Carbon Stocks in China ............................ 525 18.3.1 Data .......................................................................................................................... 526
18.3.1.1 Data Produced Using the National Forest Inventory Database ....... 526 18.3.1.2 Data Produced Using a Satellite-Based Approach ............................. 528
18.3.2 Validation ................................................................................................................ 529 18.3.3 Results ..................................................................................................................... 529 18.3.4 Discussion ............................................................................................................... 538
References ..................................................................................................................................... 539
form, and (4) some of the problems caused by different types of boundaries may be avoided when data are converted into a grid form.
