GLAD

University of Maryland will work collaboratively with USGS and colleagues in the multiinstitutional remote sensing group in Guatemala (GIMBUT) on enhancing mapping of the conversion of pasture lands and natural forest to palm plantations. The work will build off ongoing efforts at University of Maryland in the generation of metrics for forest and non-forest lands in Guatemala. The project will monitor the rate of growth and conversion of lands to palm plantations and also discriminate between large scale oil palm plantations and small holdings on tropical peatlands using vegetation indices of Landsat 8 and Sentinel 1 data.