Volume 2
Geographers at the University of Leicester are working to improve information on global deforestation in areas like the Amazon: providing new data that might ultimately halt its destruction
Key words: Deforestation / Satellite Images / Remote Sensing / Amazon
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The quality and availability of Earth images taken from space have come a long way since the first blurred photography was beamed back by the USA's Explorer 6 satellite just over fifty years ago.
Satellite mapping began in earnest with the launch of NASA's Landsat program in 1972. Since then, millions of images have been archived. In the 1990s Europe also joined in, most recently with the launch of Envisat in 2002.
Satellite imagery has been used in a variety of ways: for surveillance and national security purposes, through to monitoring hazards such as hurricanes, and longer-term environmental change.
The technology has already played a major role in identifying areas of rapid deforestation, particularly within the Amazon, where remote sensing is the only viable way to improve conservationists' knowledge.
Its use is set to increase, with real-time applications providing an ever more accurate picture of the changes taking place, by automatically monitoring and detecting new logging tracks and drainage ditches.
Crucially, this information could help developing countries receive financial rewards for Reducing Deforestation and Degradation (REDD); currently under discussion as part of the negotiations for a post-Kyoto agreement to protect the climate system; as any such rewards will only be viable if the evidence they provide is accurate and verifiable.
Geographers Dr Kevin Tansey and Professor Heiko Balzter at Leicester University are playing a leading role, working on the development of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS)'s AstroSAR-Lite monitoring satellites, which would monitor all tropical forests at a high spatial resolution of 3 metres every few days.
This work is part of wider work within the University on a project known as G-STEP (GMES Space and Technology Exchange Partnership), which seeks to provide a ’hub’ for information which supports and speed up the use of Earth Observation (EO) data and information services, both by businesses and policy makers.
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Dr Kevin Tansey and Professor Heiko Balzter, Department of Geography, University of Leicester
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