{"id":12906,"date":"2019-12-20T12:13:39","date_gmt":"2019-12-20T15:13:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amazoniasocioambiental.org\/?p=12906"},"modified":"2020-01-31T12:18:07","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T15:18:07","slug":"tracking-amazon-deforestation-from-above","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/en\/radar\/tracking-amazon-deforestation-from-above\/","title":{"rendered":"Tracking Amazon Deforestation from Above"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: right;\">Earth Observatory NASA<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">December 22, 2019<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 1200px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-12906-1\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/forestlossanimation_oli_2000_2018.mp4?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/forestlossanimation_oli_2000_2018.mp4\">https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/forestlossanimation_oli_2000_2018.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p><em>Editor\u2019s Note: This story is the third part in a series. Please read\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/earthobservatory.nasa.gov\/images\/145649\/mapping-the-amazon\">part 1<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/earthobservatory.nasa.gov\/images\/145888\/making-sense-of-amazon-deforestation-patterns\">part 2<\/a>\u00a0for a more complete picture of Amazon deforestation.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Scientists have used satellites to track the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest for several decades \u2014 enough time to see some remarkable shifts in the pace and location of clearing.<\/p>\n<p>During the 1990s and 2000s, the Brazilian rainforest was sometimes losing more than 20,000 square kilometers (8,000 square miles) per year, an area nearly the size of New Jersey. \u201cIt was open season on the rainforest back then,\u201d said\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/whrc.org\/staff\/michael-coe\/\">Michael Coe<\/a>, a senior scientist with the Woods Hole Research Center. \u201cRanchers, soy farmers, land speculators, loggers, and miners were coming to the frontier and clearing virtually anything they wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In 2004, following several years of particularly rapid deforestation, public pressure turned the tide. That was the year the Brazilian government adopted an aggressive policy called the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/climatepolicydatabase.org\/index.php\/Action_Plan_for_Deforestation_Prevention_and_Control_in_the_Legal_Amazon_(PPCDAm)\">Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon<\/a>\u00a0(PPCDAm). The government created a large network of national and state parks, established protected territories for indigenous groups, strengthened environmental enforcement agencies, made it more difficult to export goods produced on illegally deforested land, and strengthened satellite monitoring systems.<\/p>\n<div class=\"panel image-viewer-panel\">\n<div class=\"panel-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov\/images\/imagerecords\/145000\/145988\/amazoninpe_av.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"panel-footer\">\n<p class=\"first\">2001 &#8211; November 18, 2019<\/p>\n<div class=\"clearfix\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>It was ambitious, and it worked. Within a few years, large-scale deforestation dropped by roughly 50 percent. By 2012, forest clearing was down nearly 80 percent, or roughly 5,000 square kilometers (1,900 square miles) per year. The turnaround was heralded as one of the world\u2019s most dramatic environmental success stories.<\/p>\n<p>Satellite-based forest monitoring systems played a key role in slowing deforestation, explained\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/scholar.google.com\/citations?hl=en&amp;user=Do0ijbEAAAAJ&amp;view_op=list_works&amp;sortby=pubdate\">Raoni Raj\u00e3o<\/a>, an expert in environmental policy at Federal University of Minas Gerais. In 1998, the government established a data-collection system called\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.obt.inpe.br\/OBT\/assuntos\/programas\/amazonia\/prodes\">PRODES<\/a>, based on Landsat 5 and 7 observations. Scientists at Brazil\u2019s national space agency (INPE) used that data to calculate how much rainforest was being clear-cut each year in the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Amaz%C3%B4nia_Legal\">Legal Amazon<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For more than a decade, PRODES data was mostly kept within government labs and agencies. In 2002, with public outrage about deforestation growing, INPE began posting the full dataset online, complete with deforestation maps for all of the Brazilian rainforest. \u201cThat move toward transparency and accountability proved crucial because it made it possible for the science community, NGOs, and the public to engage,\u201d said Raj\u00e3o.<\/p>\n<div class=\"panel image-viewer-panel\">\n<div class=\"panel-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov\/images\/imagerecords\/145000\/145988\/forestlosszm2_oli_2000_2018.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"panel-footer\">\n<p class=\"first\">2001 &#8211; 2018<\/p>\n<div class=\"clearfix\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>A second satellite-based system,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.obt.inpe.br\/OBT\/assuntos\/programas\/amazonia\/deter\">DETER<\/a>, went into operation in 2004 and further advanced the cause. While PRODES collected Landsat images once every few weeks and deforestation totals were updated once per year, DETER made use of daily observations of deforestation, fire, and vegetation health from lower-resolution sensors (<a href=\"https:\/\/modis.gsfc.nasa.gov\/\">MODIS<\/a>) on NASA\u2019s Terra and Aqua satellites. Though the image quality was lower, the daily coverage allowed forest monitors to identify some newly cleared areas in near-real time. When DETER was first set up, it sent deforestation alerts to enforcement officers within two weeks. By 2011, the system was sending alerts within a day.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDETER completely changed the way rangers went about enforcement work,\u201d said Raj\u00e3o. Rather than doing random patrols and checking for permits, rangers would send squads of enforcement officers \u2014 with satellite images in hand \u2014 to investigate areas of recent, suspicious activity. That made it much easier to remove or apprehend equipment. The word spread among deforesters. The existence of DETER meant that environmental authorities would likely notice if large tracts of land were cleared, and fines and agents would follow soon enough.<\/p>\n<p>Early in his career, NASA forest ecologist\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/science.gsfc.nasa.gov\/sed\/bio\/douglas.morton\">Doug Morton<\/a>\u00a0spent several years working with Brazilian colleagues to develop DETER. In those days, there were plenty of technical challenges to overcome. \u201cWith a system that looked over such a large area, we had to be very careful to avoid false detections,\u201d Morton explained. \u201cWe learned we had to be quite conservative with the deforestation alerts.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"panel image-viewer-panel\">\n<div class=\"panel-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov\/images\/imagerecords\/145000\/145988\/br163defores_tmo_amo_2019.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"panel-footer\">\n<p class=\"first\">June 4, 2000 &#8211; June 19, 2019<\/p>\n<div class=\"clearfix\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>For instance, even though MODIS could detect subtle shifts in vegetation as soon as loggers started to remove some trees, the system did not flag something as deforestation until it had been fully cleared and burned, which was sometimes months later. And due to the resolution of MODIS, the system only detected relatively large clearings \u2014 those that were at least 25 hectares (62 acres).<\/p>\n<p>Prior to DETER, clearings that were hundreds or even thousands of hectares were common along deforestation frontiers in Par\u00e1, Mato Grosso, and other states. After DETER was launched, the average size of patches began to decline. Within five years, the largest clearings virtually ceased. \u201cThe big players saw the writing on the wall and either changed their behavior or shifted their operations out of the rainforest and into the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/earthobservatory.nasa.gov\/images\/145649\/mapping-the-amazon\">Cerrado<\/a>,\u201d said Coe, referring to the drier, savanna-woodland vegetation areas to the south and east of the rainforest.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe trend toward smaller patch size is something that we now see all over the Amazon,\u201d added\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.geographie.hu-berlin.de\/en\/professorships\/geomatics\/people\/labmembers\/benjamin_jakimow\">Benjamin Jakimow<\/a>, a Humboldt University researcher. \u201cIt is likely partly a strategy to avoid satellite monitoring and enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"panel image-viewer-panel\">\n<div class=\"panel-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov\/images\/imagerecords\/145000\/145988\/amazonpatchsize.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"panel-footer\">\n<p class=\"first\">2001 &#8211; 2014<\/p>\n<div class=\"clearfix\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>University of Leeds scientist\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/scholar.google.com\/citations?hl=en&amp;user=F4JW-ZIAAAAJ&amp;view_op=list_works&amp;sortby=pubdate\">Michelle Kalamandeen<\/a>\u00a0has been watching the smaller clearings closely using\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/earthenginepartners.appspot.com\/science-2013-global-forest\">forest change data<\/a>\u00a0from the University of Maryland. In one\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41598-018-19358-2\">recent analysis<\/a>\u00a0of Landsat observations, she found that the number of new large clearings (greater than 50 hectares) in the Amazon declined by 46 percent between 2001-2007 and 2008-2014, while the number of small clearings (less than 1 hectare) had increased by 34 percent. Most of the newer deforestation patches were below the threshold detected by DETER (less than 25 hectares).<\/p>\n<p>Kalamandeen has also tracked basin-wide shifts in deforestation. Notably, hotspots of forest loss moved away from large soy farms in Mato Grosso and Par\u00e1 and shifted north and east, into drier Cerrado areas in other Brazilian states and in Bolivia. Changing global demand and prices for soy, leather, and beef contributed to the migration, but analysts also attribute the shift to initiatives like the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1126\/science.aaa0181\">Soy Moratorium<\/a>, which sought to keep products from recently deforested areas out of global markets.<\/p>\n<div class=\"panel image-viewer-panel\">\n<div class=\"panel-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov\/images\/imagerecords\/145000\/145988\/yurimaguas_ls7_2001181_lrg.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov\/images\/imagerecords\/145000\/145988\/yurimaguas_oli_2019191.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"panel-footer\">\n<p class=\"first\">June 29, 2001<a class=\"download-btn download-btn-first no-underline pull-right hvr-rectangle-out\" href=\"https:\/\/eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov\/images\/imagerecords\/145000\/145988\/yurimaguas_ls7_2001181_lrg.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">JPEG<\/a><\/p>\n<p>July 10, 2019<a class=\"download-btn no-underline pull-right hvr-rectangle-out\" href=\"https:\/\/eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov\/images\/imagerecords\/145000\/145988\/yurimaguas_oli_2019191_lrg.jpg\">JPEG<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"clearfix\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Since 2008, new forest-clearing hotspots have emerged in Peru and Colombia. While the spread of small-scale cattle ranching played a key role, other activities have also contributed. In Peru,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/earthobservatory.nasa.gov\/images\/144841\/tracking-peruvian-forest-loss-from-space\">gold mining<\/a>, road building, and the establishment of oil palm plantations have all helped push annual clearing rates to some of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/maaproject.org\/2018\/synthesis3\/\">highest levels<\/a>\u00a0in that country since the early 2000s. In Colombia, the pace of deforestation began rising rapidly in 2015, when a civil war ended and made clearing forests for timber, coca production, subsistence farming, and other uses more viable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSmall-scale mining is also a factor outside of Brazil in explaining the increase in small clearings, particularly in the northern Amazon,\u201d Kalamandeen said. Indeed, the data shows spikes in deforestation of small patches (less than 1 hectare) in Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana in 2012 \u2014 the same year that gold prices peaked. \u201cHowever, the deforestation footprint from mining does seem to be small and short-lived in comparison to cattle,\u201d she added. The image below shows deforestation around\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pulitzercenter.org\/reporting\/venezuelas-mining-arc-boom-sweeps-indigenous-people-and-cultures\">Las Claritas<\/a>, a mine in Venezuela.<\/p>\n<div class=\"panel image-viewer-panel\">\n<div class=\"panel-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov\/images\/imagerecords\/145000\/145988\/lasclaritas_oli_2016271_lrg.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov\/images\/imagerecords\/145000\/145988\/lasclaritas_oli_2016271.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"panel-footer\">\n<p class=\"first\">September 27, 2016<a class=\"download-btn download-btn-first no-underline pull-right hvr-rectangle-out\" href=\"https:\/\/eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov\/images\/imagerecords\/145000\/145988\/lasclaritas_oli_2016271_lrg.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">JPEG<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"clearfix\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>As deforestation tactics in Brazil evolved, so have satellite monitoring systems. In addition to the shift toward smaller plots, one response to DETER and PRODES that scientists have detected is an increase of clearing during the rainy season, when clouds obstruct most satellite views of the rainforest.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere could be a benefit to incorporating more radar data into forest monitoring systems because radar can detect deforestation through clouds,\u201d explained\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/servirglobal.net\/Global\/Articles\/Article\/2595\/servir-profile-of-africa-flores\">Africa Flores<\/a>, a scientist based at NASA\u2019s Marshall Space Flight Center.<\/p>\n<p>Flores is helping NASA and USAID set up a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/servirglobal.net\/Regions\/Amazonia\">new research and application collaboration<\/a>\u00a0in the Amazon. One of their first projects involves helping the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ciat.cgiar.org\/\">International Center for Tropical Agriculture<\/a>\u00a0(CIAT) and the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazonconservation.org\/about\/index.html\">Amazon Conservation Association<\/a>\u00a0to integrate\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/servirglobal.net\/Global\/Articles\/Article\/2674\/sar-handbook-comprehensive-methodologies-for-forest-monitoring-and-biomass-estimation\">synthetic aperture radar (SAR)<\/a>\u00a0data into their\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.terra-i.org\/terra-i.html\">Terra-i<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/maaproject.org\/about-maap\/\">MAAP<\/a>\u00a0forest monitoring systems.<\/p>\n<p>SAR sensors work by transmitting microwave signals at an oblique angle toward features on the land surface, and then measuring how the signal scatters and returns to the sensor. Changes in the signal over time indicate changes in the landscape. Beyond seeing through clouds and making observations by day and night, SAR can pick up on subtle changes in the texture of forest canopies that neither Landsat nor MODIS instruments can provide\u2014information that could make it easier to detect deforestation at an earlier stage.<\/p>\n<div class=\"panel image-viewer-panel\">\n<div class=\"panel-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov\/images\/imagerecords\/145000\/145988\/forestlosszm1_oli_2000_2018.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"panel-footer\">\n<p class=\"first\">2001 &#8211; 2018<\/p>\n<div class=\"clearfix\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>In a few years, the launch of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nisar.jpl.nasa.gov\/\">NISAR Mission<\/a>\u00a0should sharply increase the amount of freely available radar data needed to monitor deforestation in the Amazon. In the meantime, an updated version of DETER is now ingesting higher-resolution data from the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/directory.eoportal.org\/web\/eoportal\/satellite-missions\/r\/resourcesat-2\">ResourceSat-2<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/earth.esa.int\/web\/guest\/missions\/3rd-party-missions\/potential-missions\/cbers\">CBERS<\/a>\u00a0satellites, bringing the deforestation detection threshold down to 3 hectares (7 acres).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNASA\u2019s commitment to free and open data was what first made DETER possible in 2003, and that data policy system is why MODIS was the backbone of the system,\u201d said Morton. \u201cThe approach now is to get a view of the Amazon as often as possible by feeding every type of available data into the system.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><i>NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/earthexplorer.usgs.gov\/\">U.S. Geological Survey<\/a>, MODIS data from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/earthdata.nasa.gov\/\">NASA EOSDIS\/LANCE and GIBS\/Worldview<\/a>\u00a0and forest loss data from the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/earthenginepartners.appspot.com\/science-2013-global-forest\">University of Maryland<\/a>. Forest patch size chart uses data from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41598-018-19358-2\">Kalamandeen, Michelle, et al. (2018)<\/a>. PRODES deforestation rate data from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/terrabrasilis.dpi.inpe.br\/\">INPE<\/a>. Story by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/earthobservatory.nasa.gov\/about\/adam-voiland\">Adam Voiland<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Taken from: https:\/\/earthobservatory.nasa.gov\/images\/145988\/tracking-amazon-deforestation-from-above<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earth Observatory NASA December 22, 2019 &nbsp; Editor\u2019s Note: This story is the third part in a series. Please read\u00a0part 1\u00a0and\u00a0part 2\u00a0for a more complete picture of Amazon deforestation. &nbsp; Scientists have used satellites to track the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest for several decades \u2014 enough time to see some remarkable shifts in the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":321,"featured_media":12895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-radar","category-3","description-off"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/321"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12906"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12910,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12906\/revisions\/12910"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}