Use of Satellite Products for Analysis of Changes in Territories of Nature Reserve Fund of Ukraine

Abstract

This work is devoted to the study of temporary changes in land cover types within the nature reserve fund of Ukraine. First of all, this is an analysis of the forestcover change (deforestation or reforestation) according to the open data of GlobalForest Change 2000–2020 with a spatial resolution of 30 meters, with the definition of the most problematic types of reserves where deforestation took place in2000–2020. Another aspect of the research is the monitoring of the agricultureusing within the nature reserve fundation, changes in the area of agriculturalland over time and their comparison. This study is based on own land coverclassification maps with a spatial resolution of 10 meters for the years 2016–2020, and are compared with the open data set World Cover Map for Ukrainein 2020. Sentinel–2 optical satellite data and Sentinel–1 radar data were used tocreate land cover classification maps for all Ukraine. The paper describes thetechnology for land cover classification maps creation for large areas based onsatellite data. The main stages of preliminary processing of satellite data, themethodology of merging data of different and homogeneous nature for differenttime dates are considered. Using data sets of geospatial products, the dynamicsof changes in the forest area and cropland for various types of nature reservefund of Ukraine for 2000–2020 were studied. The largest share of forests is inprotected tracts, parks-monuments of horticultural art and dendrological parks(more than 73 % forests), of which the largest changes occurred in protectedtracts on 1.81 % of the area (1.7 thousand ha) and dendrological parks on1,02 % of the area (17 ha). Research and results have shown that at the national level changes over time are not significant (up to 3 % for forests and up to2 % for agricultural areas), but they are of great importance, since naturalresources are limited, and the quality of life of mankind depends primarily onnature, ecology and environmental quality.