Detekcja zmian roślinności wysokiej Krakowa w latach 2016 - 2017 przy wykorzystaniu analizy GEOBIA zobrazowań satelitarnych RapidEye (Planet)

Essential elements of the city greenery spatial management are: cutting down, replacement and planting of trees and shrubs. Cutting of trees in Poland is governed by the law specifying procedures and conditions necessary to obtain specific permits. The legislation introduced in 2017 caused observable, although not thoroughly researched, increase of the cut and losses in city greenery. While the law was in place from the 1st of January to the 17th of June 2017, private parcel owners could cut down trees on their property without any permit. The exact scale and size of these legal perturbations are not fully known. The primary goal of this publication is to determine changes that occurred in high vegetation cover (trees with H>5.0 m) in Krakow (Poland; city area approx. 327 km2), while the law was in place. GEOBIA (Geographic Object-Based Image Analysis) advanced image analysis method was used as well as RapidEye satellite imagery (Planet Labs.) from July 2016 and August 2017. The GEOBIA analysis determined that the total area of high vegetation in Krakow was 5 481.6 ha in 2016 (approx. 17.2% of the city area) and 5 649.3 ha in 2017, which indicates a small increase of high vegetation (approx. +0.5%). The same analysis indicated that the high vegetation decreased by the area of 260.3 ha (-4.7% of the total high vegetation area of 2016) and increased by the area of 428.0 ha (+7.8%).