ABSTRACT
It is widely recognized that the integrity and ecological processes of tropical ecosystems are increasingly threatened by land use/land cover change due to rapid developments and uncertainties of commodity prices. The Royal Forest Department has employed aerial photographs and satellite images to monitor forest cover in Thailand since 1961. Most of the interpretations have been done visually using black-and-white or false-color composite images at the scale of 1:250,000. The Millennium Assessment defined ecosystem services as the conditions and the processes through which natural ecosystems and the species that comprise them sustain and fulfill human life. Thailand has a tropical monsoon climate but precipitation varies from region to region due to topographic variations and latitudinal gradients. For instance, peninsular Thailand and the east are the wettest parts of the country, receiving annual rainfall of 2,000 millimeters or more, which means they are classified as "permanently humid."
