Forest Fire Impact Monitoring in Peat Swamp Area Using Satellite data; Case Study in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia

Abstract

This study evaluated the land cover change and the impact of fires that occurred in 1997 and 2002 on a peat swamp forest in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. We employed Post Classification Comparison (PCC), Multitemporal NDVI Classification (MNC), and Multitemporal Principal Component Analysis (MPCA) methods for processing Landsat TM/ETM+ satellite images. Furthermore, SPOT-Vegetation 10-day Maximum Value Composite (MVC) data were used and compared with NDVI calculated by radiation values from tower-mounted instruments. PCC yielded information regarding the land cover composition and class relationship from 1993 to 2003. MNC and MPCA seemed to be reliable because they merge spectral data corresponding to TM-1996 (pre-fire in 1997), ETM-2000 (post-fire 1997 and pre-fire 2002), and ETM-2003 (post-fire in 2002), which is crucial for detecting vegetation recovery. The burnt areas of 1997 and 2002 were 83,340 ha (15.4%) and 34,956 ha (6.5%), respectively. These areas were selected from 540,000 ha that was analyzed using MNC, and 89,086 ha (16.5%) and 31,859 ha (5.9%) in respective years, which were analyzed using MPCA. The results prove the analyses using Landsat TM/ETM+, SPOT-Vegetation data and ground-based NDVI to be effective for identifying land cover changes in the study area that is affected by forest fires. They can be applied over large areas at different timescales .