Combining Landsat TM/ETM+ and ALOS AVNIR-2 Satellite Data for Tropical Forest Cover Change Detection

The European Commission funded Tropical Ecosystem Environment Observation by Satellite (TREES) project aims to assess the forest cover and its changes within the pan- tropical belt. Statistics for the monitoring target periods 1990, 2000 and 2010 are derived from analyzing a systematic sample set of satellite imagery mainly from the Landsat TM and ETM+ sensors. To reach full coverage of all sample sites for the year 2010 epoch and to ensure data continuity for possible future epochs the usage of alternative satellite data is inevitable. In this study the replacement of Landsat data with ALOS AVNIR-2 data was tested. Adaptations of the existing processing chain are presented as well as the results of an accuracy assessment. The results show that AVNIR-2 data are generally suitable to substitute Landsat data in this context.