Quantifying rate of deforestation and CO2 emission in Peninsular Malaysia using Palsar imageries

8th IGRSM International Conference and Exhibition on Geospatial & Remote Sensing

地球科学;计算机科学

Hamdan, O.^1 ; Abd Rahman, K.^1 ; Samsudin, M.^1

Forest Research Institute Malaysia, Selangor, Kepong

52109 FRIM, Malaysia^1

关键词: Carbon loss;    CO2 emissions;    Environmental disturbances;    Forest cover;    Human population;    Land development;    Peat swamps;    Rapid growth;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/37/1/012028/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1755-1315/37/1/012028

学科分类：计算机科学（综合）

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

Increasing human population and the rapid growth of Malaysia's economy are often associated with various environmental disturbances which have been contributing to depletion of natural resources and climate change. The need for more spaces for numerous land development activities has made the existing forests suffer deforestation. The study was carried out in Peninsular Malaysia, which currently has about 5.9 million ha of forests. Phased array type L-band SAR (Palsar) and Palsar-2 images over the years 2010 and 2015, respectively were used to identify forest cover and deforestation occurrences resulted from various conversion of forests to other land uses. Forests have been identified from horizontal-vertical (HV) polarization and then classified into three major categories, which are inland, peat swamp and mangrove. Pixel subtraction technique was used to determine areas that have been changing from forests to other land uses. Forest areas have been found declined from about 6.1 million ha in year 2010 to some 5.9 million ha in 2015 due to conversion of forests to other land uses. Causes of deforestation have been identified and the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that has been emitted due to the deforestation activity has been determined in this study. Oil palm and rubber plantations expansion has been found the most prominent factor that caused deforestation in Peninsular Malaysia, especially in the states of Pahang, Terengganu, Johor and Kelantan. The rate of deforestation in the period was at 0.66% yr-1, which amounted a total of about 200,225 ha over the five years. Carbon loss was estimated at about 30.2 million Mg C, which has resulted in CO2emission accounted at about 110.6 million Mg CO2. The rate of CO2emission that has been resulted from deforestation was estimated at 22.1 million Mg CO2yr-1. The study found that the use of a series of Palsar and Palsar-2 images, with a consistent, cloud-free images, are the most appropriate sensors to be used for monitoring of deforestation over the Peninsular Malaysia region.