Indonesia has experienced extensive land-cover change and frequent vegetation and land fires in the past few decades. We combined a new land-cover dataset with satellite data on the timing and location of fires to make the first detailed assessment of the association of fire with specific land-cover transitions in Riau, Sumatra. During 1990 to 2017, secondary peat swamp forest declined in area from 40,000 to 10,000 km² and plantations (including oil palm) increased from around 10,000 to 40,000 km². The dominant land use transitions were secondary peat swamp forest converting directly to plantation, or first to shrub and then to plantation. During 2001–2017, we find that the frequency of fire is greatest in regions that change land-cover, with the greatest frequency in regions that transition from secondary peat swamp forest to shrub or plantation (0.15 km⁻² yr⁻¹). Areas that did not change land cover exhibit lower fire frequency, with shrub (0.06 km⁻² yr⁻¹) exhibiting a frequency of fire >60 times the frequency of fire in primary forest. Our analysis demonstrates that in Riau, fire is closely connected to land-cover change, and that the majority of fire is associated with the transition of secondary forest to shrub and plantation. Reducing the frequency of fire in Riau will require enhanced protection of secondary forests and restoration of shrub to natural forest.

Urbanization has accelerated the conversion of vegetated land to built-up regions. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of urban park configuration on the Land Surface Temperature of the park and adjacent areas. In urban parks, the study analyzed the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), the Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI), and the Land Surface Temperature (LST). The NDVI categorization process resulted in the development of a vegetation density distribution. The majority of Medan’s urban areas were categorized as low density, as seen by their low NDVI values. The NDBI values were significantly higher in the majority of the area. This shows that the majority of places are experiencing a decline in vegetation cover. The density of vegetation varies according to the placement of park components such as trees, mixed plants, recreation, and sports areas. According to LST data, the temperature in the urban park was cooler than in the surrounding areas. Although the surrounding areas are densely populated, urban parks are dominated by trees. Additionally, there is a green space adjacent to the park, which is a green lane that runs alongside the main roadways.

(1) Background: The management of forest and land fires has become of concern to the Indonesian government, as demonstrated by the issuing of the Presidential Instruction of the Republic of Indonesia Number 11 of 2015, then replaced by Number 3 of 2020, concerning Forest and Land Fire Management. In 2002, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoEF) established Manggala Agni, a forest fire management organization, at the central government level. This study aims to explain the development of the Indonesian Forest and Land Fire Prevention Patrol System. The system development was conducted by the Computer Science Department of IPB University, in collaboration with the Agency for Climate Change and Forest and Land Fire Management, as well as the Directorate of Forest and Land Fire Management, MoEF. (2) Methods: The system development adopted the steps in the prototyping method, namely communication, quick planning, rapid design modeling, and prototype construction, as well as dissemination, submission, and feedback. (3) Results: The web-based system for the real-time monitoring and analysis of the forest and land fire prevention patrol is integrated into a mobile application for recording field observations during patrol activities. The system testing was successfully conducted by involving the users. The test results show that all features in the system are working correctly and meet the user’s requirements. The mobile application has saved 36.02% of the time for recording the patrol data and 40.32% for creating the patrol reports. In addition, using the web-based application has saved time in preparing the patrol reports by 56.48%.

The increase in peatland fire’s intensity has encouraged people to develop methods of preventing wildfire. One of the prevention methods is recognizing the distribution pattern of hotspot as one of forest and land fire indicators. We could determine the area that has high fires density based on distribution patterns so any early prevention steps could be performed in that area. This research proposed to recognize the distribution pattern of hotspot clusters in the peatland areas in Sumatera in the year 2014 using Kulldorff’s Scan Statistics (KSS) method with Poisson model. This approach was specifically designed to detect clusters and assess their significance via Monte Carlo replication. Results showed that the method is reliable to detect the clusters of hotspots which have the accuracy of 95%. Riau and South Sumatera province have the highest density of cluster distributions of the hotspot. Based on the maturity level of peat, cluster distributions of hotspot were mostly found in ‘hemic’ maturity level. Based on peatland thickness, cluster distribution of hotspot was mostly found in ‘very deep’ thickness.

Peatland refers to the peat soil and wetland biological environment growing on the surface. However, unexpected fires in peatlands frequently have brought severe greenhouse gas emissions and transboundary haze to Southeast Asia. To alleviate this issue, this paper first establishes an Internet of Things (IoT) system for peatland monitoring and management in the Raja Musa Forest Reserve (RMFR) in Selangor, Malaysia, and proposes a more efficient and low-complexity model for calculating the Duff Moisture Code (DMC) in peatland forests using groundwater level (GWL) and relative humidity. The feasibility of the IoT system is verified by comparing its data with those published by Malaysian Meteorological Department (METMalaysia). The proposed Linear_DMC Model and Linear_Mixed_DMC Model are compared with the Canadian Fire Weather Index (FWI) model, and their performance is evaluated using IoT measurement data and actual values published by METMalaysia. The results show that the correlation between the measured data of the IoT system and the data from METMalaysia within the same duration is larger than 0.84, with a mean square error (MSE) of 2.56, and a correlation of 0.91 can be achieved between calculated DMC using the proposed model and actual values. This finding is of great significance for predicting peatland forest fires in the field and providing the basis for fire prevention and decision making to improve disaster prevention and reduction.

Comparative Analysis of Spatial Decision Tree Algorithms for Burned Area of Peatland in Rokan Hilir Riau