Road map for the detection of deforestation


Note that change maps can be obtained at intermediate stages before the final result. In fact the FBD combined intensity and texture analysis delivers results almost up to the standard of the full analysis and is relatively straightforward since it requires only 2 images. The ScanSAR analysis, by itself, is a little more time consuming since several images are required. The combination of ScanSAR and FBD leads to small improvements that must be balanced against the difficulty of matching up the two types of data.

Summary

The FBD analysis requires two time separated images while the multi-temporal ScanSAR analysis was tested on 12 acquired at intervals of 46 days. The pre-processing steps are common to both except in detail. The FBD and ScanSAR analyses were performed using Matlab and are discussed under that link. We used a WWF database to provide masks defining the original forest cover. The method can be applied without this but will be limited by interference from changes such as plantation management and other agricultural growth/harvest cycles.