SEMIAUTOMATIC AI-BASED REMOTE SENSING CLASSIFICATION TO DELIVER AN EU LANDMARK 2020 DEFORESTATION MAP FOR BRAZIL

The expertise of INPE in mapping deforestation is worldwide recognized, and it has been crucial in the development of civil agreements and public policies of deforestation control. A recent and polemic undergoing policy in the new Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 on deforestation-free products, which shall demand a fine and trustful landmark map of deforestation for every country that trades commodities within EU countries. In order to support such a policy, the Brazilian government has set an agreement that INPE shall produce a Landmark deforestation map of Brazil, based on Prodes historical series and supplemented by deforested patterns retrieved using automatized methods of artificial intelligence (AI) up until 31^st December 2020. The methodology adopts non-supervised and a supervised AI-based approaches, both using segmentation strategies under distinct protocols. Pilot areas were strategically chosen in all biomes. Both methods have been successful in detecting most deforestation patterns in all biomes, but final outputs still require auditing to reach similar Prodes accuracy.