Refining National Forest Cover Data Based on Fusion Optical Satellite Imageries in Indonesia

Abstract

Precision mapping towards tropical forest cover data is critical to address the global climate crisis, such as land-based carbon measurement and potential conservation areas identification. In the recent decade, accessibility to open public datasets on forestry is rapidly increased. However, the availability of finer-resolution of forest cover data is still very limited. As a developing country with numerous rainforests, Indonesia suffered multifaceted threats, particularly deforestation. Thus, precise forest cover data can be useful to fulfill Indonesia’s nationally determined contribution to climate change. In this study, we mapped the national forest cover data for Indonesia using a new object-based image classification approach based on combined Planet-NICFI and Sentinel-2 optical imageries. Our findings had relatively high accuracy compared with the other studies, with the F score ranging from 0.67 to 0.99 and can capture the fragmented forest in fine resolution (i.e., ∼5 m). In addition, we found that Planet-NICFI bands had a higher contribution in predicting forest cover than Sentinel-2 imageries. Utilizing forest cover data for further analyses should be performed to help the achievement of national and global agenda, e.g., related to the FOLU net sink in 2030 and the Global Biodiversity Framework.