Satellite Environmental Monitoring of the Amazon Biome

Start & End Date: 2014-Ongoing

Country/Countries: Brazil

Multilateral Institution(s) Involved: Amazon Fund

Considered to be the largest biological diversity reserve in the world, the Amazon is also the largest Brazilian biome in extent and occupies 49% of the Barzilian territory, with an area of approximately 4.1 million km². The deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon is associated with its occupation process, especially since the second half of the 20th century, when highways were opened in the middle of the forest. As a consequence, a significant part of the immense natural patrimony that constitutes the forest was affected. Estimates show them to be about 18% of forests being removed. The Amazon Fund is an initiative for financing actions to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+). It was proposed by Brazil in 2007 at the 13th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties (UNFCCC COP). The fund was created to receive voluntary donations for non-refundable application in actions to prevent, monitor, and combat deforestation, as well as for conservation and the sustainable use of the Brazilian Amazon.

INPE is a research institute that is part of the structure of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI) whose mission is to produce science and technology about space and land-based environments. INPE is responsible for running an environmental monitoring program in the Amazon, which produces systematic data on deforestation and forest degradation in the region. This data is the main source of information for decision making related to policies to combat deforestation in the Amazon. The release of this data has been recognized as an important factor in reducing deforestation in Brazil over the last few years. The project will support INPE’s activities related not only to environmental monitoring via satellite, but also mapping and studies on land use and coverage in the entire Amazon region. Part of this effort has the potential of having its methodology shared as well as the data, technologies and equipment in the monitoring of the environment in Brazil’s other regions and biomes, in addition to other tropical countries. The monitoring systems are essential to contain illegal deforestation activities. This project incorporates seven subprojects: mapping out the use and coverage of land in the Legal Amazon; improving the TerraAmazon software; improving the services for receiving, distributing and using images that INPE produces using remote sensoring; improving monitoring of forest fires and illegal burn-offs; studying standards and processes in characterizing deforestation dynamics in the Amazon; making available tools to shape changes in the use of land; and improving methods to estimate biomass and emissions from changes in land use. The expected results of the project will help implement the REDD strategy (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) in the country, since they will make it possible to increase controls on deforestation and forest degradation, by strengthening INPE’s monitoring systems and increasing know-how on deforestation and degradation’s progress over time.

Highlights include the conclusion of the 2000 Amazon Deforestation Calculation Program (Prodes) and the survey of the uncertainties of Prodes, as well as the mapping of land use and land cover of the years 2000 and 2014 and the development of methodology for nonforest regions. Improvements to the data reception system were completed and was initiated the second phase of the Deter-C methodological implementation, an enhancement of the Real Time Deforestation Detection System (Deter). A preliminary version of the map of forest biomass estimation of the Amazon biome was produced, and studies and articles on deforestation dynamics in the Amazon were conducted and published. TerraAmazon version 6.0 and the version 3.0 of the land cover change modeling tool (LuccME) were developed. With regard to monitoring of burnings, new satellite data reception stations were acquired and installed, a new portal was developed and new versions of related monitoring applications were developed. The update of the georeferenced information processing system (Spring), the direct reception of data from the UK-DMC-2 and DEIMOS-1 satellites, the development of new versions of TerraAmazon, LuccME and INPE-EM are underway, as well as several studies on land cover patterns and population dynamics in the Amazon.