Abstract
The inventory and monitoring of forest resources have become increasingly important in recent years. The process has been accelerated with the introduction of photointerpretation techniques in forestry sector. Because of the different bioclimatic and geographic conditions prevailing in the Western Ghats, the vegetation exhibits highly heterogeneous nature and it is very difficult to distinguish the forest types. Very little work has been done in the field of cover type classification of Western Ghat region, Kerala using remote sensing techniques. A broad classification of the forest types, like evergreen, moist deciduous, dry deciduous, etc., was adopted in the earlier works of this region. In the present paper an interpretation key is developed successfully for the identification of climatic climax forests with their seral and edaphic types.
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