The Norwegian Computing Center (NR) is involved in the following work packages and activities:

Work package 3: Delivery of pre-processed satellite data and development of preprocessing methods

• Activity 3-1: Identify 10 test areas (each area be covered by one Landsat scenes). The test areas should be representative for different Tanzanian forest types/biomes
• Activity 3-2: Develop and test methods for (semi-) automatic atmospheric correction of high resolution optical images (Landsat). Test if moderate to low resolution images (e. g., MODIS, MERIS, AVHRR) can help to improve the atmospheric correction of Landsat images.
• Activity 3-3: Develop and test methods for cloud and cloud shadow detection and masking in high resolution optical images (e. g., Landsat, Sentinel-2).
• Activity 3-4: Develop and test methods for optical correction due to terrain aspect and slope, and bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) effects.
• Activity 3-6: Demonstrate preprocessing methods for optical Landsat images for use in KSAT’s production line.

Work package 4: Mapping of forest area and forest area change

• Activity 4-1: Identify representative polygons of each different forest type/ biome in Tanzania, as well as other major land cover classes: Also with areas with known changes.
• Activity 4-2: Investigate and interpret the variability of optical ground cover reflectance and microwave characterization within and between geographically separated forest biomes and land cover classes of Tanzania, also by considering phenology from dry/wet seasons.
• Activity 4-3: Develop and test methods for automatic change detection from time series of optical high resolution images (Landsat)
• Activity 4-5: Develop and test methods for automatic change detection from time series of Landsat and SAR images, and compare with the single sensor approaches.
• Activity 4-6: Develop and test methods for producing single-date products from time series analysis, including minimum cloud cover mosaics, land cover classification, forest/non-forest map, percent tree cover.
• Activity 4-7: Evaluate forest products (change detection maps and single date products) from the different methods: Landsat, SAR and multi-sensor Landsat+SAR.
• Activity 4-8: Analyze the challenges detected in the evaluation, and refine the methods.
• Activity 4-9: Demonstrate production of forest change maps for Tanzania, and demonstrate production of annual (also called single date) products for Tanzania: minimum cloud cover Landsat mosaic, land cover map, forest/ non-forest map, and percent tree cover.