Satellite remote sensing (RS) technology using optical and radar remote sensing techniques have been used successfully in various applications related to earth resource studies and environmental monitoring. Some advantages of these techniques are cost effectiveness, wide coverage, near real-time data acquisition and frequent revisit capability. RS has significant potential to aid oil palm monitoring and detection efforts. It also provides a cost-effective method to map oil palm and at the same time provides site-specific assessments of management practices and growth performance of the palms. Satellites imaging data of Landsat Thematic Mapper (McMorrow, 1995; Wahid, 1998) and SPOT (Lukman and Poeloengan, 1996) have been successfully used to identify oil palm growing areas and to map differences in palm age at early stages of growth. The remote sensing technique using Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) image has been employed by MPOB to improve the present methods of updating oil palm land use.

Main Research: Hj Wahid Omar