Monitoring tropical rain forest microclimate

Singapore's original tropical rain forest cover has largely been removed, leaving only a total of 2700 hectares, or 5 percent of the island, under primary and secondary forest. This area in the center of the island is protected as water catchment and nature reserves in spite of intense pressure for development. The paper investigates the application of Landsat TM thermal data to surface temperature mapping in the vicinity of Singapore's forested central catchment area as an indication of the relative degree of disturbance to the original rainforest microclimate. This will assist in the designation of priority conservation status to areas which remain structurally and microclimatically viable as primary rain forest. Apparent temperatures were corrected for emissivity differences of different land-cover types. Pixel data were then input into a vector GIS and overlaid with existing coverages representing High Forest, Water, Urban Areas, and Elevation in order to examine the thermal characteristics of each land-cover type. Distinct spatial variations in thermal characteristics are observed to correspond to land-cover differences and to parameters of forest conservation value.