Woody Cover Mapping in the Kruger National Park using Sentinel-1 time series and LiDAR data

This data repository presents a workflow to derive woody cover information for the Kruger National Park, South Africa, from freely available Sentinel-1 C-Band time series and LiDAR data (modified from Smit et al. 2016) using machine learning (MLR and Ranger in R). The methodology is described in following publication: <em>Urban, M., K. Heckel, C. Berger, P. Schratz, I.P.J. Smit, T. Strydom, J. Baade &amp; C. Schmullius (2020): Woody Cover Mapping in the Savanna Ecosystem of the Kruger National Park Using Sentinel-1 C-Band Time Series Data. Koedoe.</em> In order to derive woody cover percentage information, download all files into one folder and run the R-Files consecutively from 01_ to 04_. Follow the instruction within each of the R-Files, which are written as comments in the programming code. The data repository consist of the following files: <strong>R-Files:</strong> 1. Script 1: 01_MLR_tune_spatial_final 2. Script 2: 02_MLR_cross_validation_spatial_final 3. Script 3: 03_MLR_RANGER_train_final 4. Script 4: 04_MLR_prediction_woody_cover_final <strong>Training dataset - ENVI FILE (layerstack of Sentinel-1 VH and VV backscatter between 2016 and 2017 and the woody cover reference derived from the LiDAR data) :</strong> 1. S1_A_VH_VV_16_17_lidar <strong>Data for prediction - ENVI FILES (3 example regions in the Kruger National Park):</strong> 1. S1_A_VH_VV_16_17_subset_example_Letaba_Rest_Camp 2. S1_A_VH_VV_16_17_subset_example_Lower_Sabie 3. S1_A_VH_VV_16_17_subset_example_Pafuri <strong>Final woody cover maps of the Kruger National Park:</strong> 1. xx_woody_cover_map_final.rar (contains final maps in 10m, 30m, 50m and 100m spatial resolution as .tif and a QGIS project) <em>References:</em> Smit, I.P.J., Asner, G.P., Govender, N., Vaughn, N.R. &amp; Wilgen, B.W. van, 2016, ‘An examination of the potential efficacy of high-intensity fires for reversing woody encroachment in savannas’, <em>Journal of Applied Ecology</em>, 53(5), 1623–1633.