The use of remote sensing products for environmental analysis in the South America

  • Gabriel Pereira INPE
  • Mariane Mayumi Garcia Takeda INPE
  • Yosio Edemir Shimabukuro INPE
  • Francielle da Silva Cardozo INPE
  • Gustavo Bayma Siqueira da Silva INPE
  • Elisabete Caria Moraes INPE
  • Fabrício Brito Silva INPE
  • Samuel Martins da Costa Coura INPE
Keywords: Land use and land cover, GLOBCOVER, VCF, FRP, biomass burning

Abstract

Land use and land cover play a major role in several biogeochemical models that simulate the processes and connections with terrestrial systems, being an important component for taking decisions in ecosystem management. The advance of techniques of obtaining data from remote sensing (RS), combined with the emergence of new operational products, offers alternatives to improve the environmental analysis and monitoring. In this manner, the objective of this study is to analyze the environmental characteristics of South America during 2000 to 2005 time periods, using four remote sensing databases: the GLOBCOVER, the Vegetation Continuous Field (VCF), MODIS Fire Radiative Power (FRP) and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). Initially, GLOBCOVER and VCF products were analyzed and utilized afterwards for quantitative analysis of the spatial distribution of the FRP database. The results show that GLOBCOVER has a tendency to overestimate forest classes and to underestimate urban and mangroves areas. The analysis of hot pixels on the GLOBCOVER product indicates that the highest incidence of fires are located in the deforestation arc, in the Amazon forest border, occurring mainly over vegetation cover composed mainly of broadleaved evergreen or semi-deciduous forest. A time series analysis of FRP database indicates that biomass burning spreads over broadleaved evergreen or semi-deciduous forest and savannah areas.

Author Biographies

Gabriel Pereira, INPE
Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais Divisão de Sensoriamento Remoto
Mariane Mayumi Garcia Takeda, INPE
Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais Divisão de Sensoriamento Remoto
Yosio Edemir Shimabukuro, INPE
Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais Divisão de Sensoriamento Remoto
Francielle da Silva Cardozo, INPE
Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais Divisão de Sensoriamento Remoto
Gustavo Bayma Siqueira da Silva, INPE
Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais Divisão de Sensoriamento Remoto
Elisabete Caria Moraes, INPE
Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais Divisão de Sensoriamento Remoto
Fabrício Brito Silva, INPE
Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais Divisão de Sensoriamento Remoto
Samuel Martins da Costa Coura, INPE
Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais Divisão de Sensoriamento Remoto
Published
23/12/2010
Section
Papers