Spatiotemporal Dynamics and Distribution Patterns of Economic Forest Resources in Xinjiang, China, Based on Multi-Source Remote Sensing

Accurate, high-resolution information on economic forest resources, here referring to fruit-tree plantations and economic tree crops, is essential for land-use planning and resource management in arid regions. Xinjiang, China—one of the country’s most important fruit-producing areas—exhibits highly fragmented and heterogeneous distributions of economic tree plantations, posing challenges for large-scale and long-term monitoring. In this study, we integrated multi-source remote sensing data by combining multi-temporal Sentinel-2 optical imagery with Sentinel-1 SAR backscatter and texture features to characterize the spatial and temporal distribution patterns of major economic tree plantations from 2019 to 2024. An optimized Random Forest classifier was applied across five key production regions (Aksu, Bazhou, Hotan, Kashgar, and Turpan–Hami). The mapping results achieved overall accuracies ranging from 0.85 to 0.97, with Kappa coefficients between 0.80 and 0.95. The results indicate that economic tree plantations are predominantly distributed along oasis corridors of the Tarim Basin and the alluvial plains on both sides of the Tianshan Mountains, forming belt- and patch-like spatial patterns. While the overall spatial configuration remained relatively stable during the study period, localized expansion was observed, mainly associated with walnut, jujube, and grape plantations. These findings provide insights into the spatial dynamics of economic tree plantations and support land-use optimization and agricultural planning in arid and semi-arid regions.