Characterizing the dynamics change of vegetation cover on tropical forestlands using 250Â m multi-temporal MODIS EVI

•We argue that a forest cover change can be identified based on a change of temporal vegetation dynamic in long-term of multi-year satellite image.•We assess the net of change area within the context of deforestation, reforestation and forest regrowth of previously deforested areas.•Regarding the temporal changes pattern, we identified 52 change patterns on the Java's forestlands during the period 2001-2007.

This paper deals with characterizing temporal vegetation dynamics continuously in the forestlands of Java, Indonesia and assesses the net change area within the context of forest cover change. We argue that a consistent forestland has typical, distinct and repeated temporal inter-annual vegetation dynamics; therefore, a dynamics change in the forestland could be recognized through a change in the pattern of the long-term vegetation dynamics.We explored 250 m multi-temporal MODIS EVI 16-day composite data from 2001 to 2007 to characterize a change in vegetation dynamics related to forest cover change. The change was recognized based on comparison of annual EVI values for two successive years.The results show that by characterizing temporal vegetation dynamics, it is possible to distinguish the dynamics changes in forestlands caused by several processes, such as deforestation, reforestation and forest regrowth.Although the mixed pixel issue is quite problematic for identification of all actual change events in the area, the results indicate that the set of analyses and techniques in this study is still offers great promise for the monitoring of forest cover change at a large scale.