A Region-Growing Segmentation Approach to Delineating Timberline from Satellite-Derived Tree Fractional Cover Products

Tianqi Zhang; Jitendra Kumar; Forrest M. Hoffman; Valeriy Ivanov; Jingfeng Wang; Aleksey Y. Sheshukov; Wenbo Zhou; Paul Montesano; Desheng Liu

doi:10.3390/rs17122002

A Region-Growing Segmentation Approach to Delineating Timberline from Satellite-Derived Tree Fractional Cover Products

Tianqi Zhang
, Jitendra Kumar
, Forrest M. Hoffman
, Valeriy Ivanov
, Jingfeng Wang
, Aleksey Y. Sheshukov
, Wenbo Zhou
, Paul Montesano
, Desheng Liu

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Timberline marks the transitions from continuous forests to sparse forests and tundra landscapes. As the spatial distribution and dynamics of timberline are closely associated with regional energy and carbon balance, mapping timberline is important to a wide range of environmental and ecological studies. However, current timberline delineation approaches remain under-developed. We proposed an automatic timberline delineation method based on a seeded region-growing segmentation technique and satellite-derived products of tree fractional cover. We applied our approach to the West Siberian Plain and Alaska treeline regions as defined by the Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method for the accurate delineation of the timberlines that spatially align well with very-high-resolution satellite images. Based on the delineated timberlines, we find regional-scale tree encroachment to be not as substantial as previously reported. The proposed approach can be applied to understanding climate-induced forest responses and inform forest management practices.

Original language	English
Article number	2002
Journal	Remote Sensing
Volume	17
Issue number	12
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3390/rs17122002
State	Published - Jun 2025

Funding

Research was partially sponsored by the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs under grants 1724786 (Ohio State University), 1725654 (University of Michigan), 1724633 (Georgia Tech), and 1724868 (Kansas State University); and the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Engineering Research and Development Center (ERDC) Geospatial Research Laboratory (GRL), accomplished under Cooperative Agreement Federal Award Identification Number (FAIN) W9132V-22-2-0001. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of USACE ERDC GRL or the U.S. Government. The U.S. Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for Government purposes notwithstanding any copyright notation herein. Partial support was provided by the Next Generation Ecosystem Experiments (NGEE)-Arctic project, which is sponsored by the Earth and Environmental Systems Sciences Division (EESSD) of the Biological and Environmental Research (BER) office in the US Department of Energy Office of Science. This manuscript has been authored in part by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE).

Keywords

Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map
segmentation
taiga-tundra-ecotone
timberline
tree fractional cover
treeline

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10.3390/rs17122002

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title = "A Region-Growing Segmentation Approach to Delineating Timberline from Satellite-Derived Tree Fractional Cover Products",

abstract = "Timberline marks the transitions from continuous forests to sparse forests and tundra landscapes. As the spatial distribution and dynamics of timberline are closely associated with regional energy and carbon balance, mapping timberline is important to a wide range of environmental and ecological studies. However, current timberline delineation approaches remain under-developed. We proposed an automatic timberline delineation method based on a seeded region-growing segmentation technique and satellite-derived products of tree fractional cover. We applied our approach to the West Siberian Plain and Alaska treeline regions as defined by the Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method for the accurate delineation of the timberlines that spatially align well with very-high-resolution satellite images. Based on the delineated timberlines, we find regional-scale tree encroachment to be not as substantial as previously reported. The proposed approach can be applied to understanding climate-induced forest responses and inform forest management practices.",

keywords = "Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map, segmentation, taiga-tundra-ecotone, timberline, tree fractional cover, treeline",

author = "Tianqi Zhang and Jitendra Kumar and Hoffman, \{Forrest M.\} and Valeriy Ivanov and Jingfeng Wang and Sheshukov, \{Aleksey Y.\} and Wenbo Zhou and Paul Montesano and Desheng Liu",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2025 by the authors.",

year = "2025",

month = jun,

doi = "10.3390/rs17122002",

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volume = "17",

journal = "Remote Sensing",

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T1 - A Region-Growing Segmentation Approach to Delineating Timberline from Satellite-Derived Tree Fractional Cover Products

AU - Zhang, Tianqi

AU - Kumar, Jitendra

AU - Hoffman, Forrest M.

AU - Ivanov, Valeriy

AU - Wang, Jingfeng

AU - Sheshukov, Aleksey Y.

AU - Zhou, Wenbo

AU - Montesano, Paul

AU - Liu, Desheng

PY - 2025/6

Y1 - 2025/6

N2 - Timberline marks the transitions from continuous forests to sparse forests and tundra landscapes. As the spatial distribution and dynamics of timberline are closely associated with regional energy and carbon balance, mapping timberline is important to a wide range of environmental and ecological studies. However, current timberline delineation approaches remain under-developed. We proposed an automatic timberline delineation method based on a seeded region-growing segmentation technique and satellite-derived products of tree fractional cover. We applied our approach to the West Siberian Plain and Alaska treeline regions as defined by the Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method for the accurate delineation of the timberlines that spatially align well with very-high-resolution satellite images. Based on the delineated timberlines, we find regional-scale tree encroachment to be not as substantial as previously reported. The proposed approach can be applied to understanding climate-induced forest responses and inform forest management practices.

AB - Timberline marks the transitions from continuous forests to sparse forests and tundra landscapes. As the spatial distribution and dynamics of timberline are closely associated with regional energy and carbon balance, mapping timberline is important to a wide range of environmental and ecological studies. However, current timberline delineation approaches remain under-developed. We proposed an automatic timberline delineation method based on a seeded region-growing segmentation technique and satellite-derived products of tree fractional cover. We applied our approach to the West Siberian Plain and Alaska treeline regions as defined by the Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method for the accurate delineation of the timberlines that spatially align well with very-high-resolution satellite images. Based on the delineated timberlines, we find regional-scale tree encroachment to be not as substantial as previously reported. The proposed approach can be applied to understanding climate-induced forest responses and inform forest management practices.

KW - Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map

KW - segmentation

KW - taiga-tundra-ecotone

KW - timberline

KW - tree fractional cover

KW - treeline

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JF - Remote Sensing

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ER -

A Region-Growing Segmentation Approach to Delineating Timberline from Satellite-Derived Tree Fractional Cover Products

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