Detecting Intact Forests from Space: Hot Spots of Loss, Deforestation and the UNFCCC

Abstract

Changes in forest cover have become recognised as an important global environmental issue. This chapter aims to synthesise what is known about areas and rates of forest-cover change in the tropics and boreal Eurasia from the 1990s onwards, based on data compiled from expert opinion and earth observation technology. Since the early 1990s, changes in forest area can be measured with confidence from space from the global to the regional scale (Mollicone et al. 2003). Forest-cover change (including deforestation) at the regional scale is the process of land-cover change that is most frequently measured. During the 1990s, rates of forestcover change were much higher in the tropics than in other parts of the world. In particular, the Amazon basin and Southeast Asia contain a concentration of deforestation hotspots, and more regional remote sensing studies cover the tropics than boreal zones. However, forest degradation in Eurasia, related mostly to unsustainable logging activities or increases in fire frequency, has been growing in recent years. In addition to reviewing the results from Earth observation studies, this chapter presents a potential accounting mechanism in the context of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) question of reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries (UNFCCC 2006), which builds on recent scientific achievements related to the estimation of tropical deforestation rates from Earth observation technology.JRC.H.3 - Global environement monitorin