Comparison of Optic Landsat-8 and SAR Sentinel-1 in Oil Palm Monitoring, Case Study : Asahan, North Sumatera, Indonesia

Abstract World production of palm oil increased spectacularly in the last 20 years, especially in Indonesia and Malaysia. As the largest producer, good management in oil palm plantation is very important, the expansion of plantation also must be well planned, because its existence must not affect the surrounding environment. Therefore the information of oil palm age or condition of their growth is needed. Remote sensing has significant potential to aid oil palm monitoring and detection effort. It also provides a cost-effective method to these purpose and at same time provides side specific assessments of management areas, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is crucial for this task. The SAR is an active sensor that operates in all weather condition and daylight independent delivering information all year around at the time that is needed. SAR is sensitive to texture, size and orientation of structural objects, moisture content and ground conditions. This study has objectives to compare the methods that have been developed to monitor oil palm by using optic data and SAR data. The data that used are Landsat 8 and Sentinel-1.The study area is Asahan district North Sumatera. The regression analysis by using regression method indicates that oil palm age can be monitored by using NDVI or backscatter of SAR values with growth model. The R2 of model for Landsat 8 is 0.85 and 0.77 for Sentinel 1. Both models can be used for monitoring the condition and age of oil palm.