Monitoring the COVID-19-affected Indonesian seaweed industry using remote sensing data

Abstract

The Indonesian seaweed industry has rapidly expanded over the last twenty years and now contributes to the livelihoods of 267,000 coastal households. Policy makers need accurate information from which to base policy that improves the livelihoods of smallholder farmers without further straining natural resource limits. The sustained growth of the sector necessitates means for reporting and monitoring the sector, particularly in the context of COVID-19. This paper uses newly available, high resolution, high frequency satellite data from April 2017 to December 2020 to identify seaweed farming plots and to map the seasonal changes in the industry. This is overlaid with data on environmental factors, prices, and official production statistics to reveal a range of insights into the industry which are obscured by official annual data, such as the seasonality of production and the change in activity since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper evaluates the usefulness of this data for monitoring the industry and informing strategic policy decisions.