1 Referencing This publication should be referred as: GOFC-GOLD (2017) A Sourcebook of Methods and Procedures for Monitoring Essential Biodiversity Variables in Tropical Forests with Remote Sensing. Eds: GOFC-GOLD & GEO BON. Report version UNCBD COP-13, GOFC-GOLD Land Cover Project Office, Wageningen University, The Netherlands. ISSN: 2542-6729. Core Editorial Team Mike Gill, Vice-Chair GEO BON / Polar Knowledge Canada Rob Jongman, JongmanEcology / Wageningen University Research Sandra Luque, National Research Institute of Science and Technology for Environment and Agriculture, France Brice Mora, GOFC-GOLD LC Office / Wageningen University Research Marc Paganini, European Space Agency - ESRIN Zoltan Szantoi, Joint Research Centre, European Commission, Ispra, Italy / Department of Geography and Environmental studies, Stellenbosch University Authors In addition to the core editors, a number of international experts in remote sensing, and biodiversity field measurement have contributed to the development of the Sourcebook and are thankfully acknowledged for their support. This Sourcebook is the result of a joint voluntary effort from more than 70 contributing authors from different institutions (that they may not necessarily represent). It is still an evolving document. The experts who contributed to the present version are listed under the section(s) to which they contributed and immediately below in alphabetical order: Maria P. Adamo, Jesús A. Anaya, Liana O. Anderson, Herizo Andrianandrasana, Pedro de Araujo Lima Constantino, Dusti Becker, Andrea Berardi, Palma Blonda, Richard Bodmer, Stephanie A. Bohlman, Robert G.H. Bunce, Kim Calders, Trevor Caughlin, Rene Colditz, Mark Chandler, Guangsheng Chen, Jenny Cousins, Theresa M. Crimmins, María Isabel Cruz López, Finn Danielsen, Ben DeVries, Lina Estupinan-Suarez, Deqin Fan, Jean-Baptiste Féret, Miguel A. Fernandez, Mike Gill, Ana Paula Giorgi, Scott Goetz, Sarah J. Graves, Matthew C. Hansen, Kate S. He, Uta Heiden, Mark Huxham, Daniel J. Hayes, Patrick Jantz, Nan Jiang, Rob H.G. Jongman, H. Andrew Lassiter, Olga León, Alison Leslie, Jed Long, Richard Lucas, Sandra Luque, Ronald E. McRoberts, Jayalaxshmi Mistry, Brice Mora, Ghislain Moussavou, Sander Mucher, Nagendra Harini, Mark Nelson, Madhura Niphadkar, Pontus Olofsson, Marc Paganini, Zisis I. Petrou, Michael K. Poulsen, Arun Pratihast, Johannes Reiche, Sami W. Rifai, Duccio Rocchini, Christophe Sannier, Carlos E. Sarmiento Pinzón, Roger Sayre, Linda See, Andrew Skidmore, Zoltan Szantoi, Cristina Tarantino, Ida Theilade, Thrity Vakil, Peter Vogt, Benjamin E. Wilkinson, John N. Williams, Haigen Xu, Wenquan Zhu. 2 Publishers GOFC-GOLD Land Cover Project Office, supported by the European Space Agency, and hosted by Wageningen University, The Netherlands © Global Observation of Forest Cover and Land Dynamics (GOFC-GOLD) Available at: http://www.gofcgold.wur.nl/sites/gofcgold- geobon_biodiversitysourcebook.php Biodiversity Observation Network, Group on Earth Observations © Group on Earth Observations Available at: http://geobon.org/ 3 Acknowledgments The European Space Agency is acknowledged for its support of the GOFC-GOLD Land Cover Project Office. We thank the GEO BON Secretariat for helping to coordinate the initiative. Authors were supported by their home institutions to contribute to this publication in their respective areas of expertise. We thank also Nadine Drigo for her editing work. Reviewers We acknowledge the following people for their valuable comments provided during the review process: Jesus Anaya, Tom Barry, Joy Burrough, Emilio Chuvieco, Rene Colditz, Isabel Cruz, Peter Dennis, Ben Devries, Ilse Geijzendorffer, Gary Geller, Uta Heiden, Reinhard Klenke, Sandra Luque, Rebecca Mant, Ron McRoberts, Brice Mora, Greg Newman, Vihervaara Petteri, Johannes Reiche, Andrew Skidmore, Zoltan Szantoi, Orlando Vargas, Alfried Vogler, Peter Vogt, Benjamin Wilkinson, Xiaoyang Zhang. 4 Table of Contents 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................ 9 1.1 BACKGROUND, THE ROAD TO COORDINATED BIODIVERSITY MONITORING SYSTEMS ............................................................ 9 1.2 PURPOSE AND SCOPE OF THE SOURCEBOOK ............................................................................................................. 17 1.3 FOREST DEFINITIONS ........................................................................................................................................... 18 1.3.1 Key references for Section 1 ...................................................................................................... 20 2 MONITORING KEY EBVS WITH REMOTE SENSING ....................................................................................... 22 2.1 INTRODUCTION – ESSENTIAL BIODIVERSITY VARIABLES .............................................................................................. 22 2.1.1 What are Essential Biodiversity Variables? ............................................................................... 23 2.1.2 Tracking EBVs Using Remote Sensing ....................................................................................... 24 2.1.3 Key references for Section 2.1 ................................................................................................... 25 2.2 VEGETATION PHENOLOGY .................................................................................................................................... 26 2.2.1 Concepts of vegetation phenology ........................................................................................... 26 2.2.2 Phenometrics ............................................................................................................................ 27 2.2.3 Methods for monitoring vegetation phenology ........................................................................ 28 2.2.4 Opportunities for using remote sensing to monitor vegetation phenology .............................. 32 2.2.5 Issues and Challenges ............................................................................................................... 39 2.2.6 Potentials and applications of phenology studies in tropical forests ........................................ 41 2.2.7 Activities of phenology monitoring in tropical forests .............................................................. 42 2.2.8 Key References for section 2.2 .................................................................................................. 45 2.3 NET PRIMARY PRODUCTIVITY ................................................................................................................................. 51 2.3.1 Definition and relevance ........................................................................................................... 51 2.3.2 Field measurements of net primary productivity ...................................................................... 51 2.3.3 Remote sensing for estimating NPP .......................................................................................... 53 2.3.4 Key References for section 2.3 .................................................................................................. 57 2.4 ECOSYSTEM EXTENT AND FRAGMENTATION.............................................................................................................. 60 2.4.1 Ecosystems vs. Ecosystem Occurrences .................................................................................... 60 2.4.2 Ecosystems as Distinct Physical Environments and Associated Biota ....................................... 61 2.4.3 Land Cover as a Proxy for Ecosystems ...................................................................................... 63 2.4.4 Land Cover Change – A Proxy Approach for Assessing Change in Ecosystem Extent ............... 63 2.4.5 Unspecified Change and Ecosystem Basemaps – A Proxy-Free Approach ................................ 63 2.4.6 Ecosystem Fragmentation ........................................................................................................ 64 2.4.7 Forest Cover Change Monitoring with Global Forest Watch Products ..................................... 64 2.4.8 Ecosystem Extent and Fragmentation – Summary of Issues..................................................... 65 2.4.9 Key references for section 2.4 ................................................................................................... 66 2.5 ECOSYSTEM STRUCTURE ................................................................................................................................... 67 2.5.1 Background ............................................................................................................................... 67 2.5.2 Passive sensor technology ........................................................................................................ 68 2.5.3 RADAR technology .................................................................................................................... 69 2.5.4 LiDAR technology ...................................................................................................................... 70 2.5.5 LiDAR applications supporting EBV ecosystem structure .......................................................... 72 2.5.6 Status and outlook .................................................................................................................... 76 2.5.7 Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................