Brazil’s Amazônia-1 Will Spy on Bandits with Saws

Written by Peg Fong

Thursday, 24 July 2008

The Amazônia-1 is keeping an eye on deforestation in the Brazilian forests and urban expansion around the world. Brazil announced it will launch the satellite in 2011 and will use a high-resolution camera to capture potentially illegal activity in forests, particularly in the Amazon and Congo rainforests.

Going Google Earth with the idea, the satellite will orbit the earth 14 times a day at a distance of 400 miles collecting images from several countries. Each camera can pick up images showing 10 meters of actual terrain in each pixel on the photo – that’s some pretty detailed imagery.

Tyrson Villela, director for satellites and applications at the Brazilian told SciDev.net that the data will be freely available to research centers in Brazil and other countries. “Having access to this information will help other tropical countries to fight their environment issues,” says Villela. Besides making environmental observations and natural resources management, the Amazônia-1 will also map out remote areas, and conduct coastal and disaster monitoring.

While this technology and the purpose of its use are both pretty cool, they’re not by any means unique or break-through. Especially if the satellite isn’t launching for another three years. The bottom line seems to be that Brazil wants to step up with technology. But if it keeps illegal deforestation in check, then go for it.

Via Science and Development Network and TreeHugger; Photo via Leonardo F Frietas

Comments (3)

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Multiple DMC satellites used by Brazil
written by Paul Stephens , July 25, 2008

Brazil uses lots of satellite data to monitor deforestation. In addition to the US Landsat and the Chinese-Brazilian CBERS satellites, full coverage of the huge tropical rainforest is carried out by the international Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC). With its 4 satellites it is uniquely capable of revisiting a site every day. That means if it is cloudy the DMC can keep imaging an area until there is a clear day. For other single satellites with narrower images it is impossible to do this. For example Landsat ony gets back to revisit a site evry 16 days and CBERS every 26 days! Landsat took 5 years to get a good clear coverage of cloudy United Kingdom!

The DMC's very wide images of 650km wi tha 32 meter pixel size enables us to provide useful detailed coverage of the Amazon Basin in a short time, to support the Brazilian forest monitoring programme.

Check out the DMC website www.dmcii.com to see how four countries working together have created a system that provides free help for disaster response, as well as satellite imagery for many other commercial projects from farming to forestry.

Paul Stephens
DMCii Marketing Director

Going Google Earth
written by David Lutz , July 28, 2008

I'm sorry but I have to comment on this post. Land cover and land use change has been a focus of the Earth Observation division of NASA for years and years, and has been studied for the past 35 years in research institutions around the world. Google Earth isn't the first land cover change observation platform, in fact, it is far from it. There are entire scientific journals on this subject, and to give Google credit for this entire field of study is preposterous and wrong. There are many amazing and intelligent scientists who have been examining the impact of human societies on local and regional environments for over thirty years, using image processing and GIS procedures that would be fascinating to this community. Perhaps you should write a post about the LCLUC annual meeting next April and/or some of these researchers?

~ David Lutz
University of Virginia

amazonia
written by emanuel rodrigo , August 07, 2008

oi sou emaNUel que bom eu twr partisipado

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