From Forest to Future Capital: Tracking Land Cover Change in Ibu Kota Nusantara (IKN) from 2021 to 2026 with PlanetScope Imagery
Using PlanetScope satellite imagery and spectral indices from 2021 to 2026, this study reveals that the development of Indonesia's new capital, IKN, has driven a 672% expansion of built-up areas and an 18.1% decline in vegetation, underscoring the critical environmental trade-offs of the "Forest City" vision while validating remote sensing as a vital tool for monitoring large-scale urban transformation.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
Imagine the Earth as a giant, living skin. For decades, scientists have been trying to figure out how to take a perfect, high-definition photograph of this skin to see where it's healing and where it's getting a scrape. This field is called remote sensing, which is just a fancy way of saying "measuring things from far away," usually from space. To do this, researchers use special cameras on satellites that can see colors our eyes can't, like the invisible "near-infrared" light that healthy plants bounce back. By tracking these colors over time, they can calculate things like how much "green" is left in a forest or how much carbon (the stuff that warms our planet) is stored in the trees. This matters because when we chop down forests to build cities, we don't just lose trees; we lose the planet's ability to clean the air, and we release that stored carbon back into the atmosphere.
Now, picture a massive construction project where a whole new city is being built from scratch inside a dense jungle. The builders promise that this new city will be a "Forest City," a place where nature and skyscrapers dance together in perfect harmony. But how do you know if they are actually keeping that promise while the bulldozers are roaring? That is the question a team of researchers asked about Indonesia's new capital, Ibu Kota Nusantara (IKN). They didn't just wait for official reports; they used a fleet of tiny, super-fast satellites called PlanetScope to take a daily "selfie" of the construction site from 2021 to 2026. Think of these satellites as a swarm of hyper-observant bees that can see individual leaves and narrow roads, capturing a clear picture even when the sky is cloudy.
The researchers found that while the "Forest City" vision is on the drawing board, the reality on the ground has been a rapid transformation. By using their satellite "bees" to count the pixels of green versus the pixels of concrete, they discovered that the area of developed land exploded by a staggering 670.42% between 2021 and 2026. In the same period, the total amount of vegetation (trees and bushes) shrank by 18.14%. The most dramatic change happened between 2023 and 2024, when the land was being cleared the fastest. However, the story isn't just about destruction; the data also showed a brief pause in the clearing between 2024 and 2025, where the greenery actually recovered slightly as the focus shifted to building on land that had already been cleared.
Despite the massive construction, the total amount of carbon stored in the area dropped by a small but measurable 0.28%, falling from 976.25 million kg C to 973.49 million kg C. The average "greenness" of the area, measured by a score called NDVI, also dropped by 17.15%. The researchers are quite confident in these numbers, having achieved an accuracy of about 86% in their computer models, which means their satellite maps are a reliable way to track these changes. They argue that while the "Forest City" plan aims to preserve nature, the initial phase of building the government core has come at a significant cost to the local vegetation and carbon storage.
The paper also highlights that this method of using high-resolution satellite images is a powerful tool for anyone who wants to keep an eye on big projects. It allows environmental groups and investors to see the truth of what is happening on the ground, independent of what might be said in a press release. However, the authors admit their "bee swarm" has some limits. They couldn't perfectly tell the difference between a forest being cut down for a new road and a tree farm being harvested for wood, because both look like "cleared land" from space. They also couldn't see exactly how tall a building was getting, only that it was there. To fix these blind spots in the future, they suggest using even more advanced cameras that can see the chemical makeup of plants or radar that can "feel" the shape of buildings through clouds. For now, though, their study proves that we can watch a city rise from a forest in real-time, pixel by pixel.
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