GIS application in detecting forest and bush fire risk areas in Brunei Darussalam: Case analysis on Muara and Belait districts

摘要

The land of Brunei Darussalam is approximately 75 percent under forest cover. These forests belong to six major types, each presenting numerous variants like mangrove forests, peat swamps forests located on waterlogged areas and fresh water swamps located along the river banks, health forests are located on white sands and mountain forests are located on higher altitude, the pristine forested peat land ecosystem has attracted the attention to the global communities. The findings show peat swamps forest covers 17% of the total land area comparing to freshwater swamp forest and mangrove forest which covers 2 percent and 3 percent of the total land area respectively. Over 30 percent of the peat land swamp forest are used for agriculture and 30 percent of peat land forest degraded to log. Moreover, peat swamp forests are prone to forest fire which is the new threat for virgin green forest and ecology of Brunei. The study area has focused on 2 districts in Brunei Darussalam (Brunei Muara and Belait district) with recurring fire calamities with the past 3 years period (2014–2016). The forest and bush fire shows the different new patches within the time frame in Brunei Muara district and Belait district. To perform spatial analysis and produce maps on risk areas of forest and bush fire in Brunei Darussalam through application of Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) software towards detect and monitoring for protective management of forest.