Mapping
Responsible institution:
Universidade Regional de Blumenau (FURB)
Coordinator:
Prof. Dr. Alexander Christian Vibrans
Goal:
To monitor Santa Catarina's forest cover, as well as other land uses by means of remote sensing techniques, aiming to develop useful products and services for management purposes.
Mapping is one of the FlorestaSC's action and it started in 2016 aiming to complement the field data with remote sensing (RS) data. It will focus on monitoring forest cover and land use dynamics under different spatial and temporal perspectives. The RS data come from several sensors mounted on orbiting satellites, which continuously provide images of the Earth's surface, allowing, for instance, to capture changes in forest cover, agricultural, and urban areas.
The generated information will be used for territorial planning and fiscalization/environmental licensing at local, regional, and state levels. Public agencies involved in these activities will have access to the information generated by mapping.
Note: This mapping activity was previously assigned to the MonitoraSC subproject that was part of the Santa Catarina Forest Floristic Inventory project. After the process of reformulating the project's identity, the mapping work was defined as a project action currently called FlorestaSC.
The general goal of the Mapping action is to monitor the extent of native forests and forest plantations in Santa Catarina, as well as other land uses, over time.
Its specific goals are:
To strengthen synergies between the Forest Inventory and Mapping by integrating field and RS data;
To define standardized methodologies for assessments of forest cover changes;
To quantify forest resources through maps generated by statistical modelling;
To provide continuous updated thematic maps of forest cover and general land use for public agencies;
To constantly improve methodological processes related to the understanding of the interactions between changes in vegetation and remote sensing data.
Why our work is necessary? Aren't maps of forest cover already available?
Managers and decision-makers need updated and reliable information to develop strategies for territorial planning, licensing, and environmental control. We seek to understand the limitations of the new maps by showing their quality and improving the information about forest cover and general land use.
To obtain information about land cover and use is possible only when field and remote sensing crews interact and work together. This is the goal of the Mapping action within the FlorestaSC. The RS project may improve some specific features of the FlorestaSC:
Refinement of parameters adapted for SC (forest types);
Inventory data (Cycle 2): possibility of modelling forest structure;
Maintenance (automatized tools, updates);
Quality indicators (spatial, when it is possible);
Communication between producer and user (geolabel).
Our map is innovative...
...since there are no similar mappings that have:
1) Unpublished legend of multiple land uses (with 12 thematic classes);
2) Vast spatial coverage;
3) Scale and detail for municipal application;
4) Consistent, transparent methodology with fully documented open source
To learn more about our Mapping work, also visit:
