scholarly journals Detecting Harvest Events in Plantation Forest Using Sentinel-1 and -2 Data via Google Earth Engine

Forests ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 1283
Author(s):  
Sifiso Xulu ◽  
Nkanyiso Mbatha ◽  
Kabir Peerbhay ◽  
Michael Gebreslasie
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
High Performance ◽  
Forest Biomass ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
Forest Monitoring ◽  
Plantation Forest ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Clear Cutting ◽  
Google Earth Engine

South Africa is reported to experience timber shortages as a result of growing timber demands and pulp production, coupled with the government’s reluctance to grant new forestry permits. Rampant timber theft in the country makes these circumstances worse. The emergence of cloud-based platforms, such as Google Earth Engine (GEE), has greatly improved the accessibility and usability of high spatial and temporal Sentinel-1 and -2 data, especially in data-poor countries that lack high-performance computing systems for forest monitoring. Here, we demonstrate the potential of these resources for forest harvest detection. The results showed that Sentinel-1 data are efficient in detecting clear-cut events; both VH and VV backscatter signals decline sharply in accordance with clear-cutting and increase again when forest biomass increases. When correlated with highly responsive NDII, the VH and VV signals reached the best accuracies of 0.79 and 0.83, whereas the SWIR1 achieved –0.91. A Random Forest (RF) algorithm based on Sentinel-2 data also achieved over 90% accuracies for classifying harvested and forested areas. Overall, our study presents a cost-effective method for mapping clear-cut events in an economically important forestry area of South Africa while using GEE resources.

scholarly journals FREE GLOBAL DSM ASSESSMENT ON LARGE SCALE AREAS EXPLOITING THE POTENTIALITIES OF THE INNOVATIVE GOOGLE EARTH ENGINE PLATFORM

2017 ◽  
Vol XLII-1/W1 ◽  
pp. 627-633 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Nascetti ◽  
M. Di Rita ◽  
R. Ravanelli ◽  
M. Amicuzi ◽  
S. Esposito ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Performance ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
Observation Data ◽  
Geometric Accuracy ◽  
Computing Platform ◽  
Aster Gdem ◽  
Google Earth Engine ◽  
Earth Observation Data

The high-performance cloud-computing platform Google Earth Engine has been developed for global-scale analysis based on the Earth observation data. In particular, in this work, the geometric accuracy of the two most used nearly-global free DSMs (SRTM and ASTER) has been evaluated on the territories of four American States (Colorado, Michigan, Nevada, Utah) and one Italian Region (Trentino Alto- Adige, Northern Italy) exploiting the potentiality of this platform. These are large areas characterized by different terrain morphology, land covers and slopes. The assessment has been performed using two different reference DSMs: the USGS National Elevation Dataset (NED) and a LiDAR acquisition. The DSMs accuracy has been evaluated through computation of standard statistic parameters, both at global scale (considering the whole State/Region) and in function of the terrain morphology using several slope classes. The geometric accuracy in terms of Standard deviation and NMAD, for SRTM range from 2-3 meters in the first slope class to about 45 meters in the last one, whereas for ASTER, the values range from 5-6 to 30 meters.<br><br> In general, the performed analysis shows a better accuracy for the SRTM in the flat areas whereas the ASTER GDEM is more reliable in the steep areas, where the slopes increase. These preliminary results highlight the GEE potentialities to perform DSM assessment on a global scale.

scholarly journals The NDVI algorithm utilization on the google earth engine platform to monitor changes in forest density in mining area

2021 ◽  
Vol 886 (1) ◽  
pp. 012100
Author(s):  
Munajat Nursaputra ◽  
Siti Halimah Larekeng ◽  
Nasri ◽  
Andi Siady Hamzah
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Time Series ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Vegetation Index ◽  
Forest Degradation ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
Aerial Images ◽  
Forest Monitoring ◽  
Forest Density ◽  
Google Earth Engine

Abstract Periodic forest monitoring needs to be done to avoid forest degradation. In general, forest monitoring can be conducted manually (field surveys) or using technological innovations such as remote sensing data derived from aerial images (drone results) or cloud computing-based image processing. Currently, remote sensing technology provides large-scale forest monitoring using multispectral sensors and various vegetation index processing algorithms. This study aimed to evaluate the use of the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform, a geospatial dataset platform, in the Vale Indonesia mining concession area to improve accountable forest monitoring. This platform integrates a set of programming methods with a publicly accessible time-series database of satellite imaging services. The method used is NDVI processing on Landsat multispectral images in time series format, which allows for the description of changes in forest density levels over time. The results of this NDVI study conducted on the GEE platform have the potential to be used as a tool and additional supporting data for monitoring forest conditions and improvement in mining regions.

scholarly journals Long Term Monitoring of Ghana’s Forest Reserves Using Google Earth Engine

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff Dacosta Osei ◽  
S. A. Andam-Akorful ◽  
Edward Matthew Osei jnr
Keyword(s):  
Structural Changes ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Anthropogenic Activities ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
Forest Monitoring ◽  
Forest Reserves ◽  
Deforestation Rate ◽  
Noaa Avhrr ◽  
Forestry Commission ◽  
Google Earth Engine

Farm activities continued sand winning operations and the allocation of plots of land to prospective developers in Ghana pose a serious threat to the forest covers and lifespan of the Forest and game reserves. With all the positive add ups to the country from forests, Ghana has lost more than 33.7%(equivalent to 2,500,000 hectares) of its forest, since the early 1990s between 2005 and 2010, the rate of deforestation in Ghana was estimated at 2.19% per annum; the sixth highest deforestation rate globally for that period. This shows how important forest monitoring can be to the forestry commission in Ghana. Despite the frameworks which have been developed to help Ghana to protect and restore its forest resources, inadequate monitoring systems remain a barrier to effective implementation. In this study, Google earth engine was used to map and analyze the structural changes of forest cover using JavaScript to query and compute Landsat, MODIS and NOAA AVHRR satellite imageries of the study area (Ghana) with spatial resolutions 30m, 250m and 7km respectively. A supervised classification was performed on three multi-temporal satellite imageries and a total of six major land use and land cover classes were identified and mapped. By using random Forest-classification technique, from 1985 to 2018 recorded by NOAA AVHRR, forest cover has decreased by 66% and 2000 to 2018 recorded by Landsat and MODIS 61% and 47% respectively. A decrease in the forest has been as a result of anthropogenic activities in Ghana. A change detection analysis was performed on these images and it was noted that Ghana is losing forest reserves in every 5years. Overlay of the reserved forest of the 2000 and the classified map of 2018 shows vegetation changed during 2000-2018 remarkably. Therefore, forest-related institutions like the Forestry Commission can employ and use this monitoring system on Google Earth Engine for processing satellite images particularly Landsat, MODIS and NOAA AVHRR for forest cover monitoring and analysis for fast, efficient and reliable results.

The Potential of Sentinel-2 Satellite Images for Land-Cover/Land-Use and Forest Biomass Estimation: A Review

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Crismeire Isbaex ◽  
Ana Margarida Coelho
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Satellite Images ◽  
Forest Biomass ◽  
Local Scale ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
Biomass Estimation ◽  
Promising Tool ◽  
Google Earth Engine ◽  
Sentinel 2

Mapping land-cover/land-use (LCLU) and estimating forest biomass using satellite images is a challenge given the diversity of sensors available and the heterogeneity of forests. Copernicus program served by the Sentinel satellites family and the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform, both with free and open services accessible to its users, present a good approach for mapping vegetation and estimate forest biomass on a global, regional, or local scale, periodically and in a repeated way. The Sentinel-2 (S2) systematically acquires optical imagery and provides global monitoring data with high spatial resolution (10–60 m) images. Given the novelty of information on the use of S2 data, this chapter presents a review on LCLU maps and forest above-ground biomass (AGB) estimates, in addition to exploring the efficiency of using the GEE platform. The Sentinel data have great potential for studies on LCLU classification and forest biomass estimates. The GEE platform is a promising tool for executing complex workflows of satellite data processing.

scholarly journals Multi-Year Mapping of Disturbance and Reclamation Patterns over Tronox’s Hillendale Mine, South Africa with DBEST and Google Earth Engine

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 760
Author(s):  
Sifiso Xulu ◽  
Philani T. Phungula ◽  
Nkanyiso Mbatha ◽  
Inocent Moyo
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Vegetation Index ◽  
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
Abandoned Mines ◽  
Remote Sensing Technology ◽  
Sensing Technology ◽  
Petroleum Resources ◽  
Google Earth Engine ◽  
The Government

This study was devised to examine the pattern of disturbance and reclamation by Tronox, which instigated a closure process for its Hillendale mine site in South Africa, where they recovered zirconium- and titanium-bearing minerals from 2001 to 2013. Restoring mined-out areas is of great importance in South Africa, with its ominous record of almost 6000 abandoned mines since the 1860s. In 2002, the government enacted the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (No. 28 of 2002) to enforce extracting companies to restore mined-out areas before pursuing closure permits. Thus, the trajectory of the Hillendale mine remains unstudied despite advances in the satellite remote sensing technology that is widely used in this field. Here, we retrieved a collection of Landsat-derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) within the Google Earth Engine and applied the Detecting Breakpoints and Estimating Segments in Trend (DBEST) algorithm to examine the progress of vegetation transformation over the Hillendale mine between 2001 and 2019. Our results showed key breakpoints in NDVI, a drop from 2001, reaching the lowest point in 2009–2011, with a marked recovery pattern after 2013 when the restoration program started. We also validated our results using a random forests strategy that separated vegetated and non-vegetated areas with an accuracy exceeding 78%. Overall, our findings are expected to encourage users to replicate this affordable application, particularly in emerging countries with similar cases.

scholarly journals Terrain Analysis in Google Earth Engine: A Method Adapted for High-Performance Global-Scale Analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 400 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Safanelli ◽  
Raul Poppiel ◽  
Luis Ruiz ◽  
Benito Bonfatti ◽  
Fellipe Mello ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Performance ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
Slope Aspect ◽  
Analysis Tool ◽  
Terrain Analysis ◽  
Terrain Attributes ◽  
Visual Correspondence ◽  
Elevation Data ◽  
Google Earth Engine

Terrain analysis is an important tool for modeling environmental systems. Aiming to use the cloud-based computing capabilities of Google Earth Engine (GEE), we customized an algorithm for calculating terrain attributes, such as slope, aspect, and curvatures, for different resolution and geographical extents. The calculation method is based on geometry and elevation values estimated within a 3 × 3 spheroidal window, and it does not rely on projected elevation data. Thus, partial derivatives of terrain are calculated considering the great circle distances of reference nodes of the topographic surface. The algorithm was developed using the JavaScript programming interface of the online code editor of GEE and can be loaded as a custom package. The algorithm also provides an additional feature for making the visualization of terrain maps with a dynamic legend scale, which is useful for mapping different extents: from local to global. We compared the consistency of the proposed method with an available but limited terrain analysis tool of GEE, which resulted in a correlation of 0.89 and 0.96 for aspect and slope over a near-global scale, respectively. In addition to this, we compared the slope, aspect, horizontal, and vertical curvature of a reference site (Mount Ararat) to their equivalent attributes estimated on the System for Automated Geospatial Analysis (SAGA), which achieved a correlation between 0.96 and 0.98. The visual correspondence of TAGEE and SAGA confirms its potential for terrain analysis. The proposed algorithm can be useful for making terrain analysis scalable and adapted to customized needs, benefiting from the high-performance interface of GEE.

scholarly journals Mangrove Vegetation Mapping Using Sentinel-2A Imagery Based on Google Earth Engine Cloud Computing Platform

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 249-255
Author(s):  
Luhur Moekti Prayogo
Keyword(s):  
Image Processing ◽  
Cloud Computing ◽  
High Performance ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
Mangrove Forests ◽  
Application Development ◽  
Computing Platform ◽  
Mapping Technology ◽  
Google Earth Engine ◽  
Sentinel 2A

Mangroves are trees whose habitat is affected by tides, and their presence has decreased from year to year. Today, mapping technology has undergone many developments, including the availability of images of various resolutions and cloud-based image processing. One of the popular platforms today is the Google Earth Engine. Google Earth Engine is a cloud-based platform that makes it easy to access high-performance computing resources for extensive processing. The advantage of using Google Earth Engine is that users do not have to be IT experts without experts in application development, WEB programming, and HTML. This study aims to conduct a study on mangrove mapping in Gili Genting District with Sentinel-2A imagery using a Google Earth Engine. This location was chosen since there are still many mangroves, especially on the Gili Raja and Gili Genting Islands. From this research, it can be concluded that cloud computing-based Sentinel-2A image processing shows that the vegetation value of NDVI results ranges from -0.923208 to 0.75579. The classification results show that mangrove forests' overall presence on Gili Genting Island is more expansive than Gili Raja Island with 16.74 ha and 14.75 ha. The use of the Google Earth Engine platform simplifies the analysis process because image processing can be done once with various scripts so that analysis becomes faster.

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