This presentation, presented at the 36th International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment, explains the importance of peatlands to Indonesia as well as their contribution to carbon emissions. ALOS PALSAR data and above ground biomass assessments are used to map peatlands.

1. Characterizing Forest Degradation and
Carbon Biomass Assessment in Tropical
Peatlands using Multi-Temporal and Multi-
Polarizations SAR Data
Contributors: Arief Wijaya, Ari Susanti, Oka Karyanto, Wahyu Wardhana, Lou
Verchot and Veraldo Liesenberg
36th International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment
Berlin, 10 – 15 May 2015

2. Project Background
 This work is part larger CIFOR projects
Global Comparative Study on REDD+ (GCS REDD+) –
work in 6 countries
 CIFOR is an international research organization working
based on three pillars – research, capacity building and
media outreach
 This study is CIFOR research portfolio to address climate
change
2

3. Outline of Presentation
 Importance of peatlands for Indonesia
 CO2 emissions from peatlands
 Test site descriptions
 Data and methods
 Results
– Peatlands mapping using ALOS PALSAR data
– Above ground biomass assessment

4. Importance of Peatlands Ecosystem
 Indonesia covers >80% (~20 Mha in 1990 out of 24 Mha) of
tropical peatlands in SE Asia
 1.1 Mha of intact peat swamp forests and 6.8 Mha of
degraded peatlands forests were lost between 1990 – 2012

5. CO2 Emissions from Deforestation, Peat
Drainage and Peat Fires in Indonesia
Peatlands contribute to 30 – 50% of total carbon emissions from
forestry sector between 1990 and 2012

6. Recent large-scale clearance of
peatland forest inside a PT. Riau
Andalan Pulp & Paper (PT RAPP)
pulpwood concession on Pulau
Pedang. © Ulet Ifansasti /
Greenpeace.

7. Test Sites
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8. Available Satellite Data
 Quad polarizations ALOS Palsar (May 2010) – forest
degradation discrimination
 Quad polarizations ALOS Palsar (April 2007, May 2007,
April 2009, April 2010) - biomass modeling
 Landsat 5 image (February 2010)
 Peatland maps from Wetlands International
 Land use/land cover map from Ministry of Forestry (2000 –
2012)

9. Field Data Collection
Land use
Volume
(m3/ha)
AGB
(Mg/ha)
Carbon stocks
(MgC/ha)
Tree
height
(m)
Basal area
(m2)
LAI
Peat swamp
forest
592.35 228.25 114.12 16.92 33.19 2.96
Pioneer species
(Macaranga sp.)
32.63 7.47 3.74 11.22 9.71 3.09
Mangrove forest 182.16 105.65 52.82 9.53 11.79 2.38
Plantation forest 196.33 130.95 65.48 12.57 13.22 1.32
Rubber
plantation
125.73 113.44 56.72 14.95 51.02 2.06
- In total, 83 sampling plots were collected during dry season in 2010
- Circular nested sampling plots within 60 x 60 m2
- Size of each sub plot 0.04 ha

10. Peatlands Mapping Results

11. SAR Data Preprocessing
 Data extraction, image registration, corrections and noise filtering
 Polarimetric features: entropy, anisotropy, alpha angle, RVOG ratio, span
 Supervised classification: Multi-Layer Perceptron Neural Network (MLP-
NN) method and Maximum Likelihood Classification (MLC)

12. Alpha Entropy Plane
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

13. SAR Classification Results

14. Biomass Modeling Results

15. Above ground biomass modeling results
ID
Acquisition
date
Predictor(s) Biomass model coefficients R2 SEE F Sig.
7001 20/5/2007
HH, HV, VH,
VV, Alpha,
Entropy,
Anisotropy
y = 157.38HH - 467.09HV + 405.08VH + 23.4VV -
41.6Alpha + 4913.7Entropy - 1096.4Anisotropy +
175.656
0.278 202.217 0.441 0.851
2001 9/4/2009
HH, HV, VH,
VV, Alpha,
Entropy,
Anisotropy
y = 171.07HH - 298.26HV + 264.46VH + 96.1VV +
50.89Alpha + 714.9Entropy + 2189.26Anisotropy -
825.3
0.416 181.981 0.813 0.601
1001 12/4/2010
HH, HV, VH,
VV, Alpha,
Entropy,
Anisotropy
y = 191.57HH - 30.7HV + 104.46VH + 31.69VV -
25.19Alpha + 1150.47Entropy + 2598.39Anisotropy +
3248.58
0.670 99.83 5.356 0.015
1001 12/4/2010 HH y = 238.164HH + 2987.913 0.744 91.014 40.733 0.000
Features selection is apparently important for biomass modeling

16. Seasonal Variability or Land Use Change?
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Monthlyprecipitation(mm)
Month
mean =263 mm
Source: Indonesian National Metereological Agency
ALOS Palsar acquisition (2007, 2009, 2010)
Field work (2010)

17. Supporting Donors :