Forest Cover Change within the Russian European North after the Breakdown of Soviet Union (1990–2005)

Forest cover dynamics (defined as tree canopy cover change without regard to forest land use) within the Russian European North have been analyzed from 1990 to 2005 using a combination of results from two Landsat-based forest cover monitoring projects: 1990–2000 and 2000–2005. Results of the forest cover dynamics analysis highlighted several trends in forest cover change since the breakdown of the Soviet planned economy. While total logging area decreased from the 1990–2000 to the 2000–2005 interval, logging and other forms of anthropogenically-induced clearing increased within the Central and Western parts of the region. The most populated regions of European Russia featured the highest rates of net forest cover loss. Our results also revealed intensive gross forest cover loss due to forest felling close to the Russian-Finland border. The annual burned forest area almost doubled between the two time intervals. The 2000–2005 gross forest cover gain results suggest that tree encroachment on abandoned agriculture land is a wide-spread process over the region. The analysis demonstrates the value of regional-scale Landsat-based forest cover and change quantification. Our results supplemented official data by providing independently derived spatial information that could be used for assessing on-going trends and serve as a baseline for future forest cover monitoring

cover change within the Russian European north after the breakdown of soviet union

Forest cover dynamics (defined as tree canopy cover change without regard to forest land use) within the Russian European North have been analyzed from 1990 to 2005 using a combination of results from two Landsat-based forest cover monitoring projects: 1990-2000 and 2000-2005. Results of the forest cover dynamics analysis highlighted several trends in forest cover change since the breakdown of the Soviet planned economy. While total logging area decreased from the 1990-2000 to the 2000-2005 interval, logging and other forms of anthropogenically-induced clearing increased within the Central and Western parts of the region. The most populated regions of European Russia featured the highest rates of net forest cover loss. Our results also revealed intensive gross forest cover loss due to forest felling close to the Russian-Finland border. The annual burned forest area almost doubled between the two time intervals. The 2000-2005 gross forest cover gain results suggest that tree encroachment on abandoned agriculture land is a wide-spread process over the region. The analysis demonstrates the value of regional-scale Landsat-based forest cover and change quantification. Our results supplemented official data by providing independently derived spatial information that could be used for assessing on-going trends and serve as a baseline for future forest cover monitoring

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

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

Spring fires in Russia:Results from participatory burned area mapping with Sentinel-2 imagery

Human-induced fires play a crucial role in transforming landscapes and contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. Russia is a country where human-induced fires are widespread and form distinctive spring and summer burning cycles. However, spring fires are not well documented and it is unclear which land-cover types are associated with the spread of spring fires. Using Sentinel-2 optical satellite imagery, a wall-to-wall spring burned area data set for 1 January to 15 May 2020 was created for Russia (excluding the Arctic) using a participatory crowdsourcing digitizing approach on an online platform developed specifically for this application. The 2020 spring fire product had a producer accuracy of 85% and user accuracy of 92%. Approximately 13.38 million ha, comprising 1.8% of the study area, were mapped as burned, with the majority of the 2020 spring burned areas in Siberia. Our spring-fire product revealed five times more burned area estimates compared to the burned area estimates from the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) MCD64 product. We also found high variability of burned area per active fire pixel across regions of Russia, when compared to MODIS and visible infrared imaging radiometer suite active fire data. Spring fires started to increase from the end of February and reached their maximum by the end of March through the middle of April. Spring fires were associated with arable lands and grasslands as land-cover types, except Siberia, where spring fires were most common in deciduous and needle-leaved forests, followed by arable lands. While spring fires were associated with croplands and grasslands, an estimate for Central Russia showed approximately 75% of spring fires occurred on abandoned agricultural lands. Our study demonstrated the suitability of optical Sentinel-2 imagery for spring fire mapping and the great utility of a participatory mapping approach for fast and accurate mapping as well as engagement of the community

Identification of Hot Spot Areas of Forest Cover Changes in Boreal Eurasia

An expert consultation was held in 2004 at the initiative of the Joint Research Centre to identify areas of current and potential rapid forest cover change in boreal Eurasia with the characterization of the main drivers of these changes. The resulting hot spot; regional maps (Boreal European and Siberian regions) are presented in this study. The evidence on which the areas were designated was based on the personal experiences of the contacted experts. Information on potential criteria for an automated delineation and stratification at a broad scale was also collected.JRC.H.3-Global environement monitorin