Peatland Fire Geotagging Photo for Investigation Tool using Smartphone

Abstract

One of the ways to control tropical peat fires is to use a combination of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and smartphones for monitoring, reporting, and verification of the location of the fires. The latest smartphones have many sensors, such as a compass, accelerometer, GPS, and a camera, to collect forest activity data from a specific target area. The collected data were then transferred to a cloud server through global mobile communication. This paper discusses a mobile and web application-based approach to collect and analyze user-generated geographical information of human activity data. The paper aims is to promote law enforcement agencies, local government, and fire patrol to consider the use of this low-cost, easy-to-use technology in controlling and reducing the risk of tropical peatland fires. Our mobile application has an easy-to-use mapping technology that allows its users to locate addresses quickly and provides cartographic maps augmented with digital information and high-resolution aerial imagery. This study proposes online citizen reporting as a new approach for law enforcement by aiding local government and fire patrols to conduct monitoring, reporting, and verification to reduce the risk of peat forest fires.