Remote Sensing

Remote Sensing has become the go to tool to observe deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest. Forest cover is so thick in this region that airial photography has proved in effective. Satalite imagry is capable of picking up things that airial photagraphy just isnt able to. The main use of the satilite imagry is to compare it to previous imagry and determine the areas that have been removed. With todays software and technology the user is able to lay both images on top of each other and determine the areas that have been deforested since the former image. Not only can we tell how much is being cleared but we can also tell how fast it is being cleared.

In order to obtain this data, It must be collected by sattilites and transmitted back to earth. There Are varios types of sattilites used through out the world. Each has a different purpose and specialty. Some of the important aspects are its resolution, its swath, its dwell time, and what wavelengths it uses. Each can be used for different things, but some of the more popular satilites for observing the deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest are Modis, Landsat, and AVHRR.

Modis stands for Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectrometer. Modis is found on both NASA satelites Terra and Aqua. It has 36 spectral bands and has a resolution from 250 meteres to 1 kilometer. It has a swath width of 2,330 kilometers and images the entire earth daily.

Landsat is one of the most common used sensors for land covor. Landsat has a resolution of 30 meters and has 7 spectral bands. It has a swath of 185 kilometers, and takes 16 days to image the earth.

AVHRR stands for Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer. It is found on NOAA satelites. It has a resolution of 1.1 kilometers and has 6 bands. It has a swath width of 2,400 kilometers and reltively quickly images the earth in less than 12 hours.

Sources: Purkis et al. 2011. Remote Sensing and the Global Enviornmental Change. Willey Blackwell

NEC

Landsat Satellite

Source: Space.com

Each of these sensors used each lead great insight into the deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest. Although Deforestation has not slowed down in recent years, and has sometimes increased, it has given experts abetter understanding on the area and how its happening. For instanse the use of Remote Sensing has allowed experts to more easily find illigal logging operation to try and shut them down and slow the deforestation process. Remote sensing has come along way in the pas few years and its methods are only getting better. Every 16 days we are able to get new imagry of the Amazon rainforest. However this does not come with out its draw backs. The sensors used for this imigry is highly sensitve to cloud cover makeing certain areas of the rain forest very hard to image. Although with persistant imaging it is possible. Remote sensing is not the answer to the problem of deforestation, but it will help experts get a better understanding of the area so that one day they can find a soulution and stop the problem.