Earth Observation and Avoiding Tropical Deforestation
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FEBRUARY 2006 NUMBER 9 EARTH OBSERVATION AND AVOIDING TROPICAL DEFORESTATION GOFC-GOLD WORKING GROUP AIMS TO DEVELOP TECHNICAL PROTOCOLS FOR MONITORING TROPICAL DEFORESTATION FOR COMPENSTATED REDUCTIONS USING SATELLITE OBSERVATION iscussions are underway Montreal summit, the parties within the United Frame- and accredited observers were D work Convention on Cli- invited to submit to the UNFCCC Newsletter content: mate Change (UNFCCC) on the secretariat their views on issues feasibility of compensation for relating to reducing emissions EO and tropical deforestation 1 tropical countries to reduce de- from deforestation in developing GOFC-GOLD LC Office 2005 3 forestation following the first countries, focusing on relevant The GLOBCARBON Initiative 4 commitment period. This con- scientific, technical and meth- TerraNorte 5 cept of avoided tropical defores- odological issues, and the ex- tation has been taken on by the change of relevant information GOFC-GOLD Symposium Jena 7 conference of the parties during and experiences, including policy Krakow Workshop on ECVs 8 the at the Montreal summit in approaches and positive incen- Upcoming events 9 December 2005. Following the tives. Earth observation has been emphasized as key source of information for implementing the UNFCCC and the Kyoto protocol. Examples were advo- cated for the use of Earth Ob- servation to support national reporting on greenhouse gas inventories and for Clean De- velopment Mechanisms. Al- though observed land change (from satellite) is not easily translated into net carbon emissions, satellite observa- tions have played a dominant role in observing and assessing tropical deforestation (Figure 1). Thus, it is obvious that sat- ellite based information can Figure 1: Hot spots of deforestation derived from synergy of different datasets make a key contribution in as- Source: Lepers, E., E.F. Lambin, A.C. Janetos, R. DeFries, F. Achard, N. Ramankutty sessing avoided tropical defor- and R.J. Scholes (2005). A synthesis of information on rapid land-cover change for the estation. The operational con- period 1981-2000. BioScience, 55 (2), 115-124 1 No. 9, February 2006 GOFC-GOLD LAND COVER NEWSLETTER 9 ceptance and implementation. Such protocols are already worked on at different levels (nationally and internationally) and this will be considered. Furthermore, the group will foster GOFC-GOLD activities to overcome known challenges for implementation (i.e. consis- tency and continuity of satellite and in-situ observations) and promote the open sharing of the international satellite data needed to generate the defor- estation products and the open sharing output products and results of analysis. Figure 2: Tropical deforestation pattern in Rondonia/Brazil seen from As the next step, a expert ESA’s ERS-2/ATSR instrument. workshop on this issue will be text of the UNFCCC raises the text of these discussions (see organized and hosted by question of technical feasibility box below). There is a strong GOFC-GOLD land cover office in determining historical base- need for such a neutral advisory during the symposium on lines and monitoring future group to foster the implementa- “Land cover and Forest obser- tropical deforestation that would tion of these activities. The work vations” in March 2006 in Jena, enable tropical countries to ob- of the group aims to develop Germany (see contribution in tain carbon credits for reducing and demonstrate internationally- this newsletter). deforestation. Several major is- agreed protocols, and accepted sues emerged from a workshop technical guidelines and proto- Reference: held at the Carnegie Institution, cols for EO-based monitoring of DeFries, R., G. Asner, F. Achard, C. Jus- tice, N. Laporte, K. Price, C. Small, J. Washington in July 2005 (De- tropical deforestation for com- Townshend 2005. Monitoring tropical de- Fries et al., 2005): pensated reductions. The group forestation for emerging carbon markets, in Paulo Moutinho & Stephan Schwartz- 1. Access to data from multiple will build a communication plat- man: Tropical Deforestation and Climate satellite sensors is crucial form with actors involved to en- Change, pp. 35-46. 2. National-level institutional sure consensus and general ac- capabilities and regional partnerships to monitor tropi- Activities of the GOFC-GOLD working group: cal deforestation need to be developed ¾ Outline needs and requirements to understand what is suggested 3. Techniques for monitoring by UNFCCC and Kyoto protocol and IPCC GPG. tropical deforestation are ¾ Assess standard practices for monitoring tropical deforestation. This available as a basis for de- includes the review of national level deforestation observing sys- veloping best available prac- tems with respect to UNFCCC, and an outline of activities by other tices and standards organizations for developing such guidelines and to define the role 4. Transition from the research and need for Earth Observation (requirements versus capability and domain for monitoring defor- efficiency). estation to operational sys- ¾ Develop guidelines for best practices in monitoring tropical defores- tems requires a commitment tation at a national scale considering a range of tropical forest types from international institu- tions. and land uses, different forest change processes and most suit- able methods for their analysis, and related data requirements. The role of the GOFC-GOLD and ¾ Recommend key requirements and current limitations in imple- the established ad hoc group on menting monitoring in tropical countries. This includes the definition this issue is to provide technical of baselines, minimum requirements (transparency, interoperabil- guidance on current and future ity, validation), foreseen data shortcomings and known uncertain- capabilities for monitoring tropi- ties, and avenues for implementation and capacity building. cal deforestation within the con- 2 No. 9, February 2006 GOFC-GOLD LAND COVER NEWSLETTER 9 GOFC-GOLD LAND COVER OFFICE IN 2005 Summary of activities and achievements Supporting the GOFC-GOLD Land Cover Project Office (LC- Progress and achievements in 2005: PO) at the Friedrich Schiller ¾ State of the art in global land cover assessment University Jena, Germany, the Collect and summarize published materials and datasets European Space Agency par- Documentation on land cover algorithms, change routines, data products, in ticipates and contributes to the situ facilities international cooperation and ¾ Strategies for land cover harmonization and dataset interoperability Review of previous land cover harmonization approaches including advocating communication to coordinate the UN Land Cover Classification System as common ground for land charac- and improve global observa- terization tions of land. During its second Translation, comparison and semantic similarity assessment of several land year of operation, the GOFC- cover legends using the UN Land Cover Classification System, i.e. IGBP, , CORINE, MODIS Land Cover, USGS Anderson, Continuous Fields Products and GOLD Land Cover Project Office others (LC-PO) has continued to work Development of strategic documents for harmonization of existing land cover towards operational terrestrial datasets and guidelines for standardized development of land cover legends for earth observations. The list of future mapping ¾ Global land cover validation strategies activities and achievements is Cooperation with CEOS Cal-Val group on development of validation standards shown to the right. Participation in ongoing validation activities (GLC2000, GLOBCOVER) and com- parative accuracy assessment of existing global datasets using existing refer- Progress was made through ence information contributions in the following Outline implementation plan for an operational validation strategy to assess international initiatives includ- the accuracy of existing and future global land cover products and foster their interoperability/ synergy ing the Group on Earth Obser- ¾ Land cover map product applications vation (GEO), Integrated Global Develop advanced/ refined global land cover maps for global process modeling Observations for Land (IGOL), Dataset synergy for coarse scale land change analysis and long term trends UN Conventions, in particular ¾ Support development of GLOBCOVER Comparative assessment of GLC2000 and CORINE for GLOBCOVER develop- concerning the GCOS imple- ment mentation plan, CEOS with the Contribution to GLOBCOVER legend development group on calibration and valida- ¾ Participation in GEO process tion, ESA GLOBCOVER project LC-PO acts as point of contact for GOFC-GOLD participation in GEO activities Outline 2006 work plan tasks for GEO to benefit from GOFC-GOLD implemen- and in implementation of evolv- tation ing standards in land charac- Coordinate/initiate of GEO user Community of Practice for forest observations terization and validation. ¾ Earth observation to support UN conventions Active contribution for land cover tasks described in GCOS implementation plan For 2006, the Land Cover Office Participation in delegations to UNFCCC-COP11 and UNCBD SBSTA priorities are in the establish- Coordination of GOFC-GOLD working group to evolve internationally agreed ment of a GEO User Community technical protocols for using Earth observation in monitoring avoided tropical deforestation of Practice for forest observa- ¾ GOFC-GOLD science meetings and capacity building tions, to finalize documentation Active participation in GOFC-GOLD science and technical board meeting and strategies for