Forests

24/09/2017, Forestry, Oregon The second Sentinel-3 satellite lifted off from Russia on 25 April. It joined its twin in orbit to provide better worldwide coverage. After the commissioning of Sentinel-3B, the OLCI imager sensor will capture the full world in just two days. In terms of spatial detail, the 100 m capabilities of PROBA-V fit nicely between the Sentinel-2 eye-catcher and Sentinel-3, making it an ideal complement. Take this image from Oregon, USA as example. The 100 m PROBA-V background image nicely captures the checkered pattern, in 1 mile blocks, of the forestry activities. Sentinel-2 can then be used to zoom in even closer, like in the inset. Combination of multi-scaled datasets, from different EO sensors such as the Sentinels and PROBA-V, is the topic of many studies and analytics platform developments, like those from MULTIPLY Horizon-2020 project, presented as keynote in the upcoming PROBA-V Symposium.	10/08/2017, Discovery coast, Brazil In celebration of March 21st as the international Day of the Forests, PROBA-V zooms in on the extractive reserve of Cassurubá, that covers the Caravelas River estuary along the southeast coast of Bahia, Brazil. This reserve was created in 2009 to protect the livelihoods and culture of the local people and protect natural resources such as the mangrove forest, remnants of the Atlantic Forest and coastal marina environments important for whale nursing. The Atlantic Forest biome, as true tropical forest, extends in latitude as far as 24°S due to trade winds and higher amounts of rainfall. This coastal rain forest is among the richest in biodiversity and endemism in the world. The eight Discovery Coast Forest Reserves in this ecoregion contain around 20% of the world’s flora in an area of 120 000 hectares, including 627 species of endangered plants.	03/08/2016, Deforestation Brazil-Bolivia border About half of the remaining global rain forest is located in the Amazon area. From the 1970s onwards, many Amazonian rain forest has been cut down, mainly for cattle farming serving the international beef and leather trade. Until 2004, the average deforestation rate was about 18,700 km2 per year*. The rates have considerably decreased from 2005 onwards, but still 108,000 km2 of rain forest have disappeared since then. Fortunately, the Brazilian government is taking efforts to recover and reforest degraded pastures, in order to restrengthen the Earth’s vital lungs. The 100 m false-colour image of 3 August 2016 shows Rio Branco, a city in western Brazil, in the image centre. Deforested areas appear as a fishbone pattern in grey-blue, with the distinct southern edge forming the Brazilian-Bolivian border. The unaffected rain forest is visible in red colours and in the right corner the Madre de Dios River meanders southwestward. *: values obtained from Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE).	29/12/2015, Edumanom National Forest, Nigeria The 100 m false-colour image of 29 December 2015 shows us Edumanom National Forest, Nigeria, an area in the Niger Delta region of southeast Nigeria. The reserve is a freshwater swamp forest with an area of 9,324 hectares. The habitat has been degraded by oil-industry and logging operations. Although there are relatively few roads in the region, hunters can gain access to the forest through the creeks and along oil pipelines. The forest is also under threat from expansion of oil palm plantations. A proposed federal road from Ogbia to Nembe would run between two of the patches inhabited by chimps in the Edumanom forest. Deposited sediment is visible by the greenish colours in the river's mouth.
15/05/2016, Malanje highlands, Angola Prominently visible in the false-colour image from PROBA-V is the edge of the Malanje highlands (in red), around 1000 to 1100 m high and fertile, in the west and the Kwango River valley in the east, rich in mineral resources. The border between Malanje and Lunda Norte provinces is formed by the Loanda River, marked by its vegetated banks in red (centre), that joins the transboundary Kwango River shared by Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo further north. Kwango River is shown flowing from its mudplains in the southeast corner (orange) to the north (lightblue).	15/09/2015, Kabompo, Zambia In celebration of the International Day of the Forests on 21 March, we take a look at a remote and evergreen dry forest ecosystem in Zambia. It stretches out from West Lunga National Park to the northeast towards the confluence of the Zambezi River and the Kabompo River and the broad, annually flooding Barotse Floodplain further to the southeast. This ecosystem, comprising of several areas in Zambia, separated by grasslands, and one area crossing into Angola, is standing on infertile sandy soil with little surface water, which leaves the forest fairly undisturbed. The Kabompo River, one of the main tributaries to the Zambezi, extends southwestward from the northeast corner of the above false-colour image, captured by PROBA-V in mid September 2015. In the southeast of the image and extending further south between the Kabompo River and Luena River lies the Kabompo Protected Forest Area. The image is further transected by a number of smaller rivers flowing north-to-south, such as the Nyela, Mumbeji and Lutali.	08/09/2015, Borneo The 100 m image of 8 September 2015 shows the rain forest on southern Borneo as green areas, while deforestated areas have a red-brownish colour. Further, several smoke plumes of fires ignited to clear land are visible by blue-grey taints.	05/09/2015, Askania Nova, Ukraine On the 100 m false-colour image of 5 September 2015, the nature reserve can be recognised in the centre by the brown-green colours. The area is surrounded by pivot irrigation fields (mainly for corn and wheat growth), visible as bright green circular shapes. Further, several saline lakes can be seen as light-blue areas, while in the upper-left part the Dnjepr River is visible.
04/08/2015, Deforestation Brazil, South America This PROBA-V image (300 m) of Rondônia, western Brazil, visualizes the human impact on the world’s largest tropical rain forest. The brownish colors indicate deforested areas. Although the yearly deforestation rate in Rondônia has decreased from approximately 3900 km² in 2004 to nearly 900 km² in 2013 (ref. Brazilian Institute for Space Research, INPE), substantial amounts of precious rain forest still disappear every day.	28/01/2015, Sundarbans, Bangladesh India The 100 m image of 28 January 2015 presents the area with its mangrove forests, as well as a complex network of tidal waterways, which enables navigation to virtually every part of the forest. The upper-right part of the image shows the Brahmaputra's estuary. The Sundarbans National Park is located in the green area in the lower part.	21/01/2015, Deforestation, Cambodia The 100 m false-color image of 21 January 2015 shows the deforestation areas as brown patches, while areas that still contain rain forest are shown in green. Further, Lake Tonle Sap and the Mekong River are visible in the lower and right image part, respectively. Just north of the lake, the famous Angkor Wat temple complex can be recognized by the rectangular shape.	14/01/2015, Virunga National Park, Congo This 100 m false-colour image of 14 january 2015 shows part of the Park west and north of the large Lake Edward. Northeast of this lake, the Katwe-Kikorongo volcanic craters are visible as a purple area, while further to the east the Kazinga Channel and Lake George can be seen.
12/04/2014, The Great Bear Rain Forest, Canada One of the less well-known forestry ecosystems is the temperate rain forest, of which the Great Bear Rain Forest, located in British Columbia (Canada), is the world's largest. It covers about 64,000 km², being a quarter of the global temperate rain forest extent.	31/01/2014, Tongass National Forest, Alaska The Tongass National Forest in southeastern Alaska is the largest national forest in the United States with an area of 69,000 km². Most of its area is part of the temperate rain forest WWF ecoregion. The 300 m of 31 January shows the Tongass National Forest at the Alaskan coast in the lower part of the image, while the Yukon mountains are visible in the upper part of the image.	21/09/2014, Peru-Colombia, South America Peru is a country in western South America. It is bordered to the north by Ecuador and Colombia, to the east by Brazil, to the southeast by Bolivia, to the south by Chile, and to the west by the Pacific Ocean. Peru is an extremely biodiverse country with habitats ranging from the arid plains of the Pacific coastal region in the west to the Andes mountain peaks, extending from the north to the southeast of the country, to the tropical Amazon Basin rainforest in the east with the Amazon river.	01/06/2014, Brazil This 300 m 10-day synthesis image from the 1st decade of June 2014 shows the Xingú River region in the Matto Grosso state in Brazil. In the center of the image, the various river tributaries are clearly visible. In the vicinity of the streams the rainforest is still pristine, while further away rectangular-shaped brownish patches are visible. These patches indicate the deforested areas.