Ground Truthing Point Collection

 Today I got out to the field early to collect vegetation points along the riparian corridor with the new data dictionary which I made last night. I started my point collection a little after nine, and covered roughly 80% of the riparian corridor along both sides. I took samples of species all the way along, especially focusing along Kuku’i groves by the road. I also collected other prevalent species to use as a control. This took awhile as I got 60 points and did not get back to base camp until 2. Somehow I managed to fall into a little bog while I was looking up at the vegetation, and was temporarily trapped on an island of vegetation pods in the middle of a deep mud area. Out in the field I made several observations about vegetation distributions along the linear feature, and saw some interesting things about the way kuku’i comprised sections of the canopy. There are many places where Sygyzium cumuni dominates the top of the canopy, yet the kuku’i plays a significant role in the sides of the canopy coming down most of the way to ground level. I made comprehensive note of each point’s relation to the water features, and failed to notice a dominant pattern connected to the distribution of the kuku’i. I did however note that the hala becomes much more prevalent the farther back you move in the valley, however the stands are generally far too small to be identified with satellite imagery. I brought the data back to the barn and plotted the uncorrected x, y coordinates, and while the points have ample vegetation surrounding to make a field stand classification, the majority of places do not have sufficient resolution to facilitate visual classification.

I talked with Dr. Lee back in the barn this afternoon and discussed potentially expanding my study to include octopus tree in place of kiawe, and to also expand the study area to the valley rather than just the riparian corridor. I am hoping to improve my skills with object based image analysis and understand processes at play in the vegetation of the Ka’a’awa valley throughout the application of my project. However, I feel that I need to specifically organize my goals and methods of study seeing as they have changed from last night, but still need to outline exactly what I am trying to do so I have a foundation to work from. I am not sure precisely what I should do out in the field tomorrow but will likely try to continue improving my understanding of the locations of large, pure stands that will aid in later classifications of both WV2 and UAV imagery.