Identificación de perturbaciones en el bosque húmedo tropical colombiano usando series temporales de imágenes satelitales Landsat mediante el algoritmo Landtrendr

Abstract

<p>Time series analysis of satellite images for detection of deforestation and forest disturbances at specific dates has been a subject of research over the last few years. There are many limitations to identify the exact date of deforestation due mainly to the large volume of data and the criteria required for its correct characterization. A further limitation in the analysis of multispectral time series is the identification of true deforestation considering that forest vegetation may undergo different changes over time. This study analyzes deforestation in a zone within the Colombian Amazon using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) based on semestral median mosaics generated from Landsat images collected from 2000 to 2017. Several samples representing trends of change over the time series were extracted and classified according to their degree of change and persistence in the series, using four categories: (i) deforestation, (ii) degradation, (iii) forest plantation, and (iv) regeneration. Specific deforestation samples were analyzed in the same way using the soil-adjusted vegetation index (SAVI) to reduce the effect of spectral response variations due to soil reflectance changes. It is concluded that the two indices used, together with the near infrared (NIR) and short-wave infrared (SWIR 1) spectral bands, allow to extract values and intervals where the change produced by deforestation on forest vegetation is identified with acceptable accuracy. The analysis of time series using the Landtrendr algorithm confirmed a reliable change detection in each of the forest disturbance categories.</p>