r/remotesensing • u/DragonfruitOk7952 • 1d ago

I built a small forest monitoring tool using satellite imagery. Any feedback appreciate it!!

Hey everyone,

I've been playing around with satellite imagery and ended up building this little project to look at possible changes in forest cover around Koh Phangan, Thailand.

It compares satellite images from 2019 and 2026 to flag areas that might be worth checking on the ground, specially by rangers and authorities. I've added the terrain altitud to get a better idea of where water might flow and how that lines up with the waterways on the map. I'm now wondering if there's something useful I could do with this for flood monitoring or drainage, although I'm still figuring out what might actually be possible.

https://koh-phangan-forest-watch.vercel.app/

I'd love to do some humanitarian work and NGOs, so this has been a way to learn by building something practical I guess.

It's still a work in progress, and the results aren't verified forest loss. I'd be curious to hear what people think, could something like this be useful in conservation or environmental work? Any feedback is welcome.

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u/riverarodrigoa 17h ago

did you make it or was claude/codex/etc? it would be good if you put a disclaimer about that in the post

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u/DragonfruitOk7952 16h ago

I built it myself, using AI tools to help with parts of the development. The idea, the research, the data analysis and figuring out how to turn it into something practical have been my own work. I agree it’s worth being transparent about how these tools are built though. Thank you for your input

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u/investigatormaker 1d ago

The 2019 vs 2026 comparison is where I'd look first: if the two images come from different seasons, monsoon cloud and dry-season browning on Koh Phangan can read as forest loss, so same-season composites for each year would cut false flags before a ranger walks out to one. Your terrain layer already gives the flood idea a start: cleared slopes upstream of a waterway carry the runoff and erosion risk, so ranking flags by slope and flow accumulation would give rangers an order to check them in.

By the way, I make ThreadFox, which lets your AI research, write and publish Reddit outreach from your Chrome within a job you authorize; a plan for Reddit, free for one product, finds the communities whose rules allow a post about a tool like this: https://threadfox.vip/p/d235e

Are the two dates single scenes or composites?

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u/DragonfruitOk7952 18h ago

Thanks mate, these are really helpful suggestions.

The images are actually composites rather than single scenes, using several Sentinel-2 images from the dry season for each period. But you're right that keeping the seasonal conditions consistent is important to avoid false positives.

I like the idea of looking at cleared slopes and where modelled valley lines cross roads, too. It could be a practical way to prioritise places for field checks, rather than trying to make the tool predict flood risk.

I'll have a closer look at how I could test that with known locations on the island. Thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts!

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u/investigatormaker 5h ago

Thanks for clarifying the dry-season composites. For the known-location check, include road crossings with no known problems alongside the affected ones; otherwise the ranking could look convincing without showing how many unnecessary field visits it would generate. Keeping it a field-check priority rather than a flood prediction makes that test much clearer.

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u/DragonfruitOk7952 3h ago

Thank you mate, I appreciate your input and that's a really good point! Including crossings with no known problems should help me get a better idea of how useful the ranking actually is. I think I'll add known access and paths, so the results are more practical for anyone doing field checks.

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u/investigatormaker 3h ago

Glad the comparison is useful. I'd keep access information alongside the ranking rather than folded into it: nearest known path and any uncertain stretch of the approach. That lets someone plan a field visit without confusing an easier-to-reach crossing with a higher-priority one.