DEVELOPMENT OF METHODOLOGY FOR MONITORING AND ASSESSING THE NATIONAL GREENING PROGRAM USING OPTICAL AND SAR DATA

Abstract

Launched primarily to address the growing concern of environmental sustainability and to combat climate change, the National Greening Program (NGP) is the most ambitious reforestation program undertaken in the Philippines. Given the enormous number of resources invested in the program, it is crucial to monitor and assess the effectiveness of this initiative. To do this, the success of the selected NGP site in Zambales Province was evaluated using land cover maps, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from Sentinel-2 and MODIS, and Radar Vegetation Index (RVI) and Radar Forestation Degradation Index (RFDI) from Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images. The index time series were processed in Google Earth Engine cloud computing platform. The findings indicate that the rise in vegetation density shown by the generally increasing trend in the NDVI and RVI was consistent with the increase in vegetation cover indicated by the land cover maps. This work contributes towards the field of environmental monitoring and resource management, with potential applications that extend beyond monitoring and assessment of the NGP and towards dealing with global issues regarding land use and environmental protection.