Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for April 2023

In April Oleh Chaskovskyy - an expert on remote sensing of the Earth, Head of ForestCom “Forest Monitoring Lab”, continued monitoring old growth forests changes based on satellite images.

The available Sentinel-2 optical images for April 2023 covered only some of the studied territory (Fig. 1). Also, due to snow cover in the Carpathians, the composite of such images was unsuitable for monitoring.

Fig. 1. Areas of old-growth forests monitored by ForestCom in the Ukrainian Carpathians on the compositions of Sentinel-2 satellite images in April 2023. Particularly valuable areas are marked in red.

Sentinel-1 satellite radar images were used as an alternative. Because they do not depend on weather conditions and are able to break through clouds. However, the image is composite and it is impossible to calculate the vegetation indices on its basis, so a visual analysis of the areas for the loss of forest cover was carried out (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. Areas of particularly valuable forests (red color) on the synthetic radar image for April

The total of 1,099 plots covered with an area of 12,120.1 hectares have been studied, which is 70.1% of officially recognized old growth forests.

Monitoring is carried out by visual analysis with the accuracy as far as the resolution of radar images allows, that is, selective cuttings of low intensity cannot be determined with the help of such information. Based on the analysis, no violations of the forest cover were detected in the inspected areas.

The monitoring was carried out within the project "Combating illegal logging in Ukraine" with the support of the International Programs of the US Forest Service.

Previous reports on satellite monitoring of old growth forests changes

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for March 2023

Monitoring report old growth changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for January 2023

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for December 2022

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for November 2022

 Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for October 2022

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for September 2022

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for August 2022

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for July 2022

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for June 2022

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for May 2022

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for February-March 2022

Monitoring report of old growth forests changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for January 2022