Nunukan Island in East Kalimantan is home to significant tropical forest in its lowland areas, which is under increasing pressure from human activities. Forest fires, land conversion, and illegal logging are occurring at alarming rates on Nunukan Island, creating a need to monitor land-use regularly.
Hatfield Indonesia was contracted by CARE Canada to conduct forest cover change analysis in the Nunukan District of as part of the Forest Resources Management for Carbon Sequestration (FORMACS) project funded through the Canadian International Development Agency. Remote sensing imagery was used to determine land use change as part of a larger carbon sequestration model.
Hatfield Indonesia’s tasks included:
- Remote sensing image acquisition and classification
(Landsat 5 TM, Landsat 7 ETM, and Quickbird Imagery). - Field verification of data and integration into a GIS.
- Analysis of land use change as a component of a carbon sequestration model.
Remote sensing is a useful tool to monitor and evaluate land-use over large areas accurately, which can support improved planning. Spatial and non-spatial data can be integrated through a Geographic Information System (GIS) to support carbon sequestration models.
