Kwon Soo-hyun, a fourth-year student in the Department of Forest and Environmental Systems at Kookmin University (President Jeong Seung-ryul), published a paper as the first author in the SCI international academic journal Remote Sensing. (Title: Can Synthetic Aperture Radar Enhance the Quality of Satellite-Based Mangrove Detection? A Focus on the Denpasar Region of Indonesia)

Remote Sensing is an international journal that covers various sensor-based image processing and environmental observation studies, and is ranked in the top 15% of academic journals according to JCR.

Recently, mangroves have been attracting attention as a major carbon sink for climate change mitigation, and research is actively underway to classify and detect mangroves more accurately using remote sensing.

In this paper, Kwon Soohyun focused on the fusion of optical imagery and SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) imagery. Optical imagery is effective for precisely classifying vegetation and land cover through various bands, while SAR imagery provides stable surface information even under cloudy conditions and demonstrates strengths in detecting mangroves, which are aquatic vegetation, by utilizing water surface reflection characteristics. Kwon Soo-hyun effectively improved mangrove classification performance by combining the two images using deep learning technology. The results of this study are expected to contribute to precise detection, conservation, and restoration of mangroves in developing countries using satellite imagery, and may also be utilized in international carbon MRV and the global carbon market.

Professor Lim Cheol-hee of the Department of Forest and Environmental Systems, who supervised the research, stated, “The development of technology that can precisely detect mangrove carbon sinks, which are attracting global attention, using advanced technology is of great significance. I am pleased that Kwon Soo-hyun’s academic enthusiasm and efforts have led to such excellent results.”

Kwon Soo-hyun, the student, shared his thoughts, saying, “As this was my first research project as an undergraduate student, there were many challenges, but thanks to the guidance of my advisor and the support of my seniors, I was able to complete the paper. I plan to continue my studies in this field and further deepen my research on satellite imagery and carbon sinks.”

This research was conducted with support from the Ministry of Science and ICT’s Korea Research Foundation Excellent New Researcher Program and the Carbon Sink Specialized Graduate School.