Visualize deforestation levels with geospatial images & Amazon SageMaker using Sentinel-2 dataset from ASDI
Abstract
This article demonstrates geospatial analysis techniques to visualize and quantify deforestation using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery. It leverages Amazon SageMaker and open datasets from the Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative (ASDI) to process time series imagery capturing landscape changes related to wildfires near Paradise, California. After configuring access to the Sentinel-2 data registry, bounding boxes and date ranges isolate relevant pre-treatment and post-treatment scenes bracketing major fire events. Comparative visualization highlights patterns of healthy forest persistence versus zones of more complete canopy removal post-fire. Suggestion is to move such analytical routines into automated pipeline to enable scalable automated deforestation mapping as new Sentinel-2 observations become available over time. Overall, this article demonstrates core techniques for leveraging cloud-based geospatial data and computing tools to derive actionable intelligence maps and indicators pertinent to sustainability challenges like wildfire impacts and climate adaptation.