The Application of Decision Binary Trees to Assess the Usefulness of The Digital Terrain Model in Studying the Relationships Between Relief and Vegetation in The Polish High Tatra

The relationships between individual components of the natural environment have long been an object of research (Kostrowicki, Wójcik, 1972; Rączkowska, Kozłowska, 1994; Kozłowska, Rączkowska, 1996).

This paper is an attempt to analyse the relationships between two geocomponents of the natural environment: relief and vegetation, from a perspective contrary to the one currently prevailing in the literature of the subject. This approach assumes that relief, with its dominant role as a component strongly affecting the formation of the remaining factors, can be indicative in character and as such can represent basic factors that help determine and anticipate the occurrences of certain plant communities as well as locations with no vegetation.

Using geoinformation data along with the tools to process them, an attempt was made to assess the usefulness of the DTM (Digital Terrain Model) to identify selected plant communities, rock and water.

The development of a model of the relationships between the relief and the vegetation is an attempt to capture the correspondence between the parameters characterising the relief, calculated using the DTM model and classes of objects, with the use of information obtained from an Ikonos XS image. This model was subsequently used to draw a map of the land cover for a part of the Gąsienicowa Valley in the High Tatra (Dolina Gąsienicowa). For the purpose of this exercise, a technique of data classification called DBT (Decision Binary Trees) was used.