Digital forest sign Flanders 2009

The Boswijzer is a land cover map of forest. The Boswijzer defines forest on the basis of the following criteria: (a) forest area at least 0.5 ha, (b) length/width ratio at least 2,5 and (c) closure rate at least 50 %. This definition differs from the legal definition in the Forest Decree. The Boswijzer cannot therefore be used as the only source to determine whether what is marked as forest on the Boswijzer is also forest according to the definition ‘forest’ in the Forest Decree. The Boswijzer is not used to determine the forest area in Flanders. For this purpose, the Flemish forest inventory is used which lists the land use forest. The Boswijzer, a new style of Boswijzer, uses digital aerial photography with very high resolution images that can be processed automatically. On behalf of the Agency for Nature and Forests (ANB), team Services of the Agency Information Flanders (AIV) carried out a segmentation classification of the mid-scale summer flight orthophotos from 2009 to realise the digital forest sign.