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

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Data: 23.06.22
Monitoring of old growth forests* changes in the Ukrainian Carpathians for May 2022

In May, monitoring of old growth forests based on Sentinel satellite images continued. In May, 54 photos with less than 20% cloud cover were selected for the Ukrainian Carpathians. Therefore, the following Sentinel-2 images were used for visual calculation of the plant index. (Fig. 1).



Fig. 1. Composition of Sentinel-2 images for May-June 2022


To analyze the changes in forest cover for the territory of particularly valuable areas of the Ukrainian Carpathians was created a raster layer for the NDVI plant index (Fig. 2).



Fig.2. A layer of calculated plant index for the study area. A total of 54 Landsat-8 images were used to calculate the normalized vegetation index NDVI (Fig. 2).

For this purpose, a subprogram was created in Java Script. The calculated image is exported to QGIS to calculate statistics for each area.

The NDVI index layer calculated in Google Engine Earth is exported as an image for further analysis in the QGIS environment (Fig. 3).



Fig.2. A layer of calculated plant index for the study area. A total of 54 Landsat-8 images were used to calculate the normalized vegetation index NDVI (Fig. 2).


The NDVI index layer calculated in Google Engine Earth is exported as an image for further analysis in the QGIS environment (Fig. 3).


*Old growth forests - in the meaning, as it is introduced in the Law of Ukraine that includes three categories: virgin, quasi virgin, and natural forests - https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/2063-19/conv#Text