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

In September, experts of the ForestCom NGO continued to monitor forest ancient plantations. Optical satellite images of Sentinel-1 were used for the investigation, as the Sentinel-2 images were covered by clouds and had unsatisfactory quality for interpretation.

Using the free SNAP software, experts removed noise from the radar images and adjusted the images: they took into account the parameters of the shooting orbit, radiometric calibration, filtering and geometric correction. After - a multispectral image was created using the Google Earth Engine software.

A fragment of the Sentinel-1 radar satellite image for the studied area. Particularly valuable areas are marked in red.


The image is synthesized on the basis of vertical and horizontal polarization of radar radiation. This image was used for visual analysis of the state of ancient plantations based on satellite images.


For monitoring, 1,099 plots with an area of 12,120.1 hectares have been determined, which is 70.1% of the total number of accepted primeval forests. The monitoring was carried out as accurately as the resolution of satellite images allows, that is, selective logging 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.

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