RANDOM FOREST CLASSIFICATION OF S1/S2 IMAGERY FOR DEFORESTATION MONITORING IN UPPER PARAGUAY REGION (2015-2022)

Abstract

According to FAO (2020), one of the main environmental problems of our society is deforestation and forest degradation. The magnitude of the problem is so important that the UN within the Agenda for Sustainable Development establishes one goal directly related to the environment (SDG 15), having relationships with other objectives. One of the most important characteristics of deforestation is its spatio-temporal component; they are dynamic phenomena that can affect large areas of land in a short period of time, causing serious problems. For this reason, that for several decades the initiatives for the control of deforestation through the application of remote sensing techniques have been a constant, since the initial works of, among others, Iverson et al. (1989) and Baltaxe (1986). The improvement in the quality of the images, as well as the greater availability of them, and the advances in computer systems and software, have led to the widespread use of these techniques as tools for global monitoring.