What Does the Integrated Alerts Layer Offer?

Global Forest Watch (GFW) is committed to bringing the most accurate forest data to users as quickly as possible. We are continually expanding the near-real-time deforestation alerts available on the GFW platform and are excited to introduce an updated layer. The integrated deforestation alerts layer combines the analytical power of GLAD, GLAD-S2 and RADD deforestation alerts to provide a faster, more confident view of forest disturbances than any one individual system. Prompted by user feedback, this update simplifies workflows and harnesses the best of each alert type to support a variety of monitoring purposes. Which Alert Systems are Being Integrated? GFW currently offers three individual deforestation alert systems. GLAD-L (often called “GLAD”) is GFW’s longest-standing alert product from the University of Maryland’s (UMD) Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD) lab and uses imagery from NASA’s Landsat satellites. UMD introduced the higher resolution GLAD-S2 alerts in May 2021, which use a similar methodology to GLAD-L, but are sourced from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellites. And finally, Radar for Detecting Deforestation (RADD) alerts produced by Wageningen University use Sentinel-1 radar data. These alerts have the additional capability of detecting forest change through cloud cover that often blocks the view of the other satellites.