Identifying Change Trajectory over the Sumatra's Forestlands Using Moderate Image Resolution Imagery

Land use land cover change (LULCC) is the key to a wide range of regional and global environmental issues including land degradation, loss of biodiversity, climate change, food security, human vulnerability and environmental sustainability. Recently, the awareness on the LULCC has increased considerably in tropical regions, especially in related to the change in forestlands and other highly vulnerable areas such as the tropical peat swamp area. The high rate of forest conversion as well as agricultural development in inappropriate areas of Indonesia, particularly in Sumatra, has attracted international environmental concern as scientists further demonstrate the relationship between these changes and global climate change, biodiversity and other ecosystem services. In this study, we applied spatial analysis to investigate the feasibility in using long-term satellite datasets for detecting and quantifying the forest cover change in Sumatra. Then, we systematically identified the change trajectory of those changes. The results indicated several types of change such as agricultural development, forest cover change, either by forest fire or human factors, and temporary change in forest plantation area. Each change category has specific change mechanisms or processes, which then reveals the specific spatial model for each type.