Monitoring Forest Loss with EOS-04 dual-pol SAR data in India

Change detection methods based on optical satellite data are the most common. However, consistency in the time series dataset cannot be maintained due to the cloud coverage in the tropics and sub-tropics. With the gradual increase in open-source time-series SAR data, change detection can now be carried out with a dataset that better captures the study area’s temporal signature. ISRO has made the data from Earth Observation Satellite - 04 (EOS-04) public in December 2023. This study tests the potential of this data to map the deforested areas in the managed forests of Haldwani in Uttarakhand, India. The study has been carried out for the years 2022 and 2023. It was observed that among the HH and HV polarization channels, HV performed better with an overall accuracy of 0.84 and a kappa coefficient of 0.68.