Rural landholding mapping and deforestation detection using rapideye® images and NDVI

This paper explains Brazil´s efforts on land use monitoring and control of deforestation through the use of satellite images and geotechnologies. Up until very recently, only Landsat imagery were the basis of monitoring programs, but the government has acquired national coverages of better resolution (5 meter pixel) Rapideye® images. Additionally, it has developed a Rural Environmental Register System, based on open technologies, to receive and manage information from all landholdings in the country. The use of these images in change detection, with a technique of (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index NDVI) difference threshold assisting visual inspection is discussed. It shows an improvement in recognizing smaller (above 1.35 ha) deforestation areas, increasing by 15% the estimated change area on a specific tile and improving overall accuracy by about 13%.