FORCLIME in cooperation with Kemitraan has supported the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoEF) to conduct a training on radar-based burned area mapping using the European radar satellite Sentinel-1 whose data is available free of charge. This training is one of efforts in forest fire prevention. 21 participants from the MoEF [(DGs of Forest Resources Inventory and Monitoring and Climate Change, the forest consolidation centre-BPKH- in Pontianak, the Samarinda training centre-BDLHK)]; the National Institute of Aeronautics and Space-LAPAN; the Provincial Forest Service of West Kalimantan; the Forest Management Unit (KPH) of Kubu Raya participated in the 5-day training on 21-25 January 2019 in Sentul (West Java) to learn about radar pre-processing, classification of radar data and develop first ideas how a radar-based burned area product can be integrated with a burned area map based on optical data.

An important part of Indonesia's fire prevention efforts is mapping the burned area regularly. Mapping the entire territory of Indonesia is challenging because of the enormous size of the country as well as the and the tropical climate with frequent and continuous cloud cover throughout the year which limits the use of optical remote sensing data to a certain extent. Radar-based burned area products can improve the ability to detect burned areas and complement the burned area map based on optical Landsat data produced by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. Radar data are almost weather independent and can penetrate clouds and smoke which pose the main limitations for the availability of optical satellite images.

For more information, please contact:
Stephanie Wegscheider, Adviser for GIS
Robbie Weterings, Adviser for GIS