New PALSAR provides amazing images
First results of the ALOS Kyoto and Carbon Initiative illustrate the excellent quality of the PALSAR radar images for making cloud free forest maps.
The ALOS Kyoto and Carbon Initiative is an international science initiative led by the Japanese space agency JAXA. Within this initiative selected radar specialists work together to map specific parts of the globe using PALSAR, covering several themes including forests, wetlands and desertification.
WUR-SarVision is responsible for making the forest and wetlands maps for entire insular South East Asia and the Guiana Shield area, covering the northern portion of the Amazon basin in South America.
The spectacular picture below zooms in to a 2007 PALSAR radar image mosaic that SarVision currently develops covering insular South East Asia.
ALOS PALSAR radar image clearly showing forest (green colours), the impact of logging (logging rails and impact of logging on forest canopy near the rails), new canals, new clearings (purple) and older pulp and paper plantations (blue and grey colours). The area shown is located on the Kampar peninsula in Riau province, Sumatra and measures 50 by 60 kilometers. This imagery is available for the entire globe, for several years. Please contact us for more details.
Monitoring systems
Regional scale tropical forest monitoring (details of 50-1000m).
High resolution tropical forest monitoring (details of 20-30m).
Local surveillance with TerraSAR-X radar or low-cost aircraft systems (details up to 1 m).
Application fields
- Biodiversity conservation (e.g. mapping and monitoring wildlife habitat)
- Legal and Sustainable Forest/Plantation Monitoring (e.g. pulp and paper, palm oil) production monitoring