Study on Remote Sensing Data for Tropical Forest Carbon Assessment

Research Title	..	:	..	Study on Remote Sensing Data for Tropical Forest Carbon Assessment.
Principal Investigator	..	:	..	Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ab Latif Ibrahim
Research Description	..	:	..	Change) program to reduce deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) on the tropical rain forest. In support of REDD, the
	..		..	Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2006) provided guidelines to assist countries in developing carbon assessment methodologies. These guidelines are organized into three ‘Tiers’, each providing successively increased accuracy and thus potentially higher financial returns for monitoring and verifying carbon stocks and emissions. The Tier I approach is the most general, based on simple nationwide estimates of forest cover and generic forest carbon density values (e.g., tons of carbon per hectare). Tiers II and III provide increased detail on carbon stocks and emissions at regional and national levels using a combination of plot inventory, satellite mapping and carbon modeling approaches. At the national scale, many tropical countries will rely initially on Tier I levels of accuracy based on average biomass and soil carbon values assigned for biomes and large geographic regions, which will generate large uncertainties and thus potentially lower carbon credits (Gibbs et al 2007). Conservative accounting guidelines from the IPCC require that users of Tier I estimates assign a relatively low carbon stock per hectare compared to what might be achieved if more detailed measurements are conducted. Thus, developing regional and national monitoring capacities above Tier I accuracies will require improved high-resolution carbon mapping and modeling approaches, with the pay-off realized as increased carbon credit, boosted carbon sequestration, and improved ecosystem protection. In addition, related authority agencies to the forested land can potentially increase their carbon credits via detailed monitoring of forest cover, loss and gain (hectares), and periodic estimates of changes in forest carbon density (tons ha−1). Satellites remote sensing provides an opportunity to monitor changes in forest carbon caused by deforestation and degradation, but only after initial carbon densities have been assessed. New airborne approaches, especially light detection and ranging (LiDAR), provide a means to estimate forest carbon density over large areas, which greatly assists in the development of practical baselines (Brown et al 2005). Presently, the integrated from satellite remote sensing and airborne mapping approach is a new era in carbon study that be able supports high-resolution carbon stock assessment and monitoring especially in highest density tropical forest regions. This approach yields a spatially resolved, regional state-of-the-forest carbon baseline, followed by high-resolution monitoring of forest cover and disturbance to estimate carbon emissions (Angelson et al2009). Rapid advances and decreasing costs in the satellite and airborne mapping sectors are already making high-resolution carbon stock and emissions assessments viable anywhere in the world. The main objective of this research is to determine an accurate carbon stock technique in tropical rain forest using SPOT-5 data and airbone LIDAR. Integration of SPOT-5 and LIDAR is then produces 3-D images carbon stock map whereby showed the current status to the carbon concentration in forested area. Furthermore, results from this research can be used as a new baseline method in estimation of most accurately carbon stocks concentration throughout the region of interest using new low costs method from satellite images whereby provides useful and rapid information to the National Climate Change Committee.