DETER-B: The New Amazon Near Real-Time Deforestation Detection System

Abstract

The Brazilian Legal Amazon (BLA), the largest global rainforest on earth, contains nearly 30% of the rainforest on earth. Given the regional complexity and dynamics, there are large government investments focused on controlling and preventing deforestation. The National Institute for Space Research (INPE) is currently developing five complementary BLA monitoring systems, among which the near real-time deforestation detection system (DETER) excels. DETER employs MODIS 250 m imagery and almost daily revisit, enabling an early warning system to support surveillance and control of deforestation. The aim of this paper is to present the methodology and results of the DETER based on AWIFS data, called DETER-B. Supported by 56 m images, the new system is effective in detecting deforestation smaller than 25 ha, concentrating 80% of its total detections and 45% of the total mapped area in this range. It also presents higher detection capability in identifying areas between 25 and 100 ha. The area estimation per municipality is statistically equal to those of the official deforestation data (PRODES) and allows the identification of degradation and logging patterns not observed with the traditional DETER system.

Land-use and climate change risks in the Amazon and the need of a novel sustainable development paradigm

“…Severe droughts are associated, in general, with the occurrence of strong El Niño events affecting mostly the central and eastern portions of the Amazon, as was the case in 1906, 1912, 1926, 1983, 1992, 1998 (47), and 2015 (33). On the other hand, the warmer tropical North Atlantic and cooler tropical South Atlantic affect also the west and northwest of the basin and were responsible for the severe droughts that occurred in 1964, 2005 (48), and 2010 (49), which was recognized as one of the strongest and extensive droughts of recent decades: The 2005 drought affected about 1.9 million square kilometers, whereas the 2010 drought affected around 3 million square kilometers (50).…”

“…The rate of deforestation has declined in the last several years; this decline is conspicuous in the Brazilian Amazon, where deforestation rates have been cut down by almost 80% since 2005 (32)(33)(34) at the same time that the agricultural output in the region has been increasing significantly (35). It is therefore becoming clear that economic growth is decoupled from deforestation as demonstrated by ample facts, such as the case of the reduction of deforestation rates observed between 2005 and 2014, which are opposed to the growth of the values of agricultural gross value added (GVA) in North Brazil, which almost tripled during this period (32).…”

Multiple Patterns of Forest Disturbance and Logging Shape Forest Landscapes in Paragominas, Brazil

“…For example, the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE) has been developing and employing the DETER system (Real Time Deforestation Detection System) to detect forest degradation in the Brazilian Amazon since 2004. Furthermore, recently the Regional Center of the Amazon (RCA) from INPE, launched the DETER-B system, which uses images of ResourceSat-2 (sensor AWiFS (Advanced Wide Field Sensor) with 56 m resolution) and CBERS-4 (sensor WFI (Wide Field Imager) with 60 m resolution), capable of distinguishing eight classes of forest alteration, including different levels of degradation, fire forest scars, and two types of selective logging [26]. Another example is the Global Forest Watch platform (GFW) [27], that has integrated the FORMA (FORest Monitoring for Action), Terra-I, and GLAD (Global Land Analysis & Discovery) alerts about tree cover loss and habitat change, and has also developed an Open Data portal to track the spread of logging roads across the Congo Basin region [28].…”

Conservation impacts of a near real‐time forest monitoring and alert system for the tropics

“…Various satellite-based monitoring systems now exist that channel NRT data on fire and deforestation to both technical and non-technical users in tropical forest countries (Davies et al 2009;Musinsky 2014;Wheeler et al 2014;Diniz et al 2015;Hansen et al 2016). In 2002, Conservation International (CI) created one of the first NRT email alert systems; the initial prototype enabled delivery of manually generated fire alerts to users from seven countries, compiled by overlaying NASA's MODIS active-fires (Giglio et al 2003) on protected area boundaries in ArcView.…”

“…In 2013, with support from NASA's Wildfires program, CI merged the fire monitoring components into Firecast (firecast.conservation. org), an enhanced monitoring and forecasting system incorporating email alerts with MODIS and VIIRS active fire data for Bolivia, Colombia, Indonesia, Madagascar, Peru and Suriname; daily flammability risks forecasts for the entire Amazon, and fire season severity forecasts for South America (Chen et al 2011 With the exception of Brazil's forest monitoring systems (Diniz et al 2015), there are few published assessments of operational NRT monitoring and alert systems for conservation effectiveness, particularly those examining their utility across multiple countries with unique environmental stressors and sociopolitical contexts. In this paper, we describe how CI's systems have been used by decision makers in four tropical forest countries to combat threats to forest resources and meet ambitious sustainable development goals, and biodiversity and CO 2 emissions targets.…”