1. Forest Resource Assessment
Reducing the cost and effort using remote sensing
Pete Watt & Nelson Gapare: Indufor Asia Pacific
pete.watt@indufor-ap.com
nelson.gapare@indufor-ap.com

2. ….remote sensing and GIS as business as usual services
Looking back
10-15 years ago remote sensing and GIS were treated as specialist stand alone
tools only used for specific tasks. Today, you simply can’t do that, the
boundaries between spatial analytics and decision making are too intertwined to
look at these tools separately.
And now..
From land use, land cover, change detection/monitoring, to compliance
assessment, valuation and due diligence, remote sensing/geospatial technology
are fundamental. More so, the cost of data has dropped significantly while the
resolution has improved to sub-meter levels.
The increasing demand for historical data to set baselines and reference levels
– yes, think REDD+, ETSs, VCS and so on means we do need to smarten up in
pre-processing, classification. That’s just what we have been doing with the
likes of RapidEye, SPOT5, Landsat to name a few. Have a look at some of the
work we have been doing.

3. Selected Applications
Resource Monitoring & Strategic Planning
• Strategic planning & project screening
• Resource Due Diligence
• Long-term tracking and monitoring of plantation performance
• Resource Monitoring, wood theft, fire, wind damage & disease
• Compliance monitoring (FSC)
• Resource Classification
• National-level & VCS mapping for climate change
• LiDAR Applications

4. Multi-faceted challenges – e.g. regulatory compliance
What are the challenges?
• Illegal activities can be sporadic and varying
• Activities can be located in isolated areas
• Compliance monitoring can be difficult
• Resource classification can be complicated
• Shortage of human capacity for ground monitoring
and assessment
• Costs of monitoring and enforcement can be high
• Strategic planning can be difficult without
reasonable ground intelligence

5. Remote sensing – a multi -faceted solution
• Remote sensing eliminates key challenges such as
• Isolation of locations and accessibility
• Identification of temporal changes
• Detection of unsanctioned activities
• Cost
2011 Uncorrected
2010 Reference
2011 Normalised

6. What are the costs?
Imagery Costs
• Imagery from the archive 0.95
euro/km2 or EUR 950 for 100,000
ha (approx USD1300)
• Tasking images – new collections
minimum 20% cloud cover is 0.95
euro/km2 but order area is 250,000
Detected Encroachment
ha. (approx. 3100 USD)
Indufor’s Detection Cost and
Reporting Solution
Indufor has developed routines that
allow detection and mapping of forest
change i.e. roads or clearance (at 0.5
ha scale).
If suitable imagery are available this
service is priced at about USD30 to 40
cents/ha based on a minimum coverage
area of 100,000 ha.

7. For example…..Monitoring Compliance?
Location: South America
Application:
Monitoring of harvesting
and roading operation in
forest concessions
Solution:
5 m satellite imagery used
to automatically detect &
record harvesting and
roading areas.

8. Further examples - Mining Operations
Location: South America
Application:
Detection of mining
encroachment in forest
Concessions
Solution:
5 m satellite imagery used
to automatically detect &
record mining areas.

9. And you can link the log….to a location
Selective harvest monitoring

10. A tool for rapid intelligence gathering
Disease detection - Australia
Mapping non-sanctioned logging- Brazil
Fire detection - China

11. Resources Identification and Verification
Location: Global
Application:
Area verification is an integral part of the
valuation and the due diligence process.
Solution:
Indufor routinely use satellite images and
Pine other spatial datasets to verify the extent
and status of resources.
The process applied uses in-house
routines that assess the quality of the
resource and area.

12. Detection of Harvesting using Satellite Imagery
Location: China, 2012
Species : Eucalyptus
Application:
Due to airborne data collection restrictions no
information is available to update the progress of
harvesting or land clearance operations
Solution:
Satellite Image Cost-effective 5 m satellite imagery used to
automatically detect harvested and cleared
areas. These outputs are provided in a GIS
format and allow the calculation and tracking of
harvesting
GIS output

13. On-going Detection of Harvesting Operations
Location: Australia
Species : Pine
Application:
Due to the cost of aerial
image collection only
infrequent information is
available to update the
progress of harvesting
and thinning operations
Solution:
Cost-effective 5 m
satellite imagery used to
automatically detect &
record harvest areas.

14. Forest Carbon Projects
Satellite imagery Satellite imagery
2006 2010
Location: Papua New Guinea & Laos, 2012
Application:
Establishment of forest reference levels and
2009
reference carbon emissions levels, and
projection of future land use change for
Voluntary Carbon Markets (VCS Standard)
Solution:
2019 • Using satellite imagery to determine historical
land use and land cover change
• Projecting future deforestation by modelling
relationships between historical trends and
2059 drivers of deforestation
Projected forest cover loss (purple)

15. Mapping Plantation Performance
Location: New Zealand
Species : Pine
Application:
Monitoring plantation
status by detecting
gaps, areas of poor
growth or incorrectly
attributed areas in the
GIS.
Solution:
Using satellite imagery a
prediction model is
applied that colour
codes anomalies to
allow targeted
5 m Satellite image Variation Map (green ok – red issues) intervention

16. Science References
• Watt, P.J., & Watt M.S., Meredith A.W, 2011. Forest planning applications using RapidEye satellite data. New Zealand
Journal of Forestry
• Watt, P.J., & Watt M.S (2011). Applying satellite imagery for forest planning. New Zealand Journal of Forestry (56) 1
• Watt, P.J. 2005. An evaluation of LiDAR and optical satellite data for the measurement of structural attributes in British
upland conifer plantation forestry. Doctoral thesis. Department of Geography, University of Durham, England
• Watt, P.J. & Watt M.S 2012 (in review) Development of a national model of tree volume from LiDAR metrics for New
Zealand. International Journal of Remote Sensing
• Donoghue, D.N.M., Watt, P.J., Cox, N.J., Dunford, R.W., Wilson, J., Stables, S. and Smith, S. 2004. An evaluation of the
use of satellite data for monitoring early development of young Sitka spruce plantation forest growth, Forestry, 77, 383-396.
• Donoghue, D.N.M., Watt, P.J., Cox, N.J, Wilson, J. 2007 .Remote sensing of species mixtures in conifer plantations using
LiDAR height and intensity data. Remote Sensing of Environment.
• Donoghue, D.N.M. & Watt, P.J. 2006. Using LiDAR to compare forest height estimates from IKONOS and Landsat ETM+
data in Sitka spruce plantation forests, International Journal Of Remote Sensing 27 (11): 2161-2175.
• Dymond, J.R. , Gapare, N., Burgess, D.W., Shepherd, J.D., Newsome, P.F., Watt, P.J. (2012). Environmental Science &
Policy (16)1-8. Remote sensing of land-use change for Kyoto Protocol reporting: the New Zealand Case

17. Resource Mapping
Indufor Asia Pacific Ltd Indufor OY
Auckland City Helsinki
New Zealand Finland
www.indufor-ap.com www.indufor.fi