scholarly journals Combining global tree cover loss data with historical national forest-cover maps to look at six decades of deforestation and forest fragmentation in Madagascar

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ghislain Vieilledent ◽  
Clovis Grinand ◽  
Fety A. Rakotomalala ◽  
Rija Ranaivosoa ◽  
Jean-Roger Rakotoarijaona ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Forest Fragmentation ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
National Level ◽  
Tree Cover ◽  
National Forest ◽  
Area Network ◽  
Natural Forests ◽  
Forest Cover Change ◽  
Current Conservation ◽  
Forest Maps

AbstractThe island of Madagascar has a unique biodiversity, mainly located in the tropical forests of the island. This biodiversity is highly threatened by anthropogenic deforestation. Existing historical forest maps at national level are scattered and have substantial gaps which prevent an exhaustive assessment of long-term deforestation trends in Madagascar. In this study, we combined historical national forest cover maps (covering the period 1953-2000) with a recent global annual tree cover loss dataset (2001-2014) to look at six decades of deforestation and forest fragmentation in Madagascar (from 1953 to 2014). We produced new forest cover maps at 30 m resolution for the year 1990 and annually from 2000 to 2014 over the full territory of Madagascar. We estimated that Madagascar has lost 44% of its natural forest cover over the period 1953-2014 (including 37% over the period 1973-2014). Natural forests cover 8.9 Mha in 2014 (15% of the national territory) and include 4.4 Mha (50%) of moist forests, 2.6 Mha (29%) of dry forests, 1.7 Mha of spiny forests (19%) and 177,000 ha (2%) of mangroves. Since 2005, the annual deforestation rate has progressively increased in Madagascar to reach 99,000 ha/yr during 2010-2014 (corresponding to a rate of 1.1%/yr). Around half of the forest (46%) is now located at less than 100 m from the forest edge. Our approach could be replicated to other developing countries with tropical forest. Accurate forest cover change maps can be used to assess the effectiveness of past and current conservation programs and implement new strategies for the future. In particular, forest maps and estimates can be used in the REDD+ framework which aims at “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation” and for optimizing the current protected area network.

scholarly journals The Effectiveness of China’s National Forest Protection Program and National-level Nature Reserves, 2000 to 2010

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guopeng Ren ◽  
Stephen S. Young ◽  
Lin Wang ◽  
Wei Wang ◽  
Yongcheng Long ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Forest Cover ◽  
National Level ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Canopy Cover ◽  
Nature Reserves ◽  
National Forest ◽  
Natural Forests ◽  
Forest Protection ◽  
Deforestation Rate ◽  
Deforestation Rates

There is profound interest in knowing the degree to which China’s institutions are capable of protecting its natural forests and biodiversity in the face of economic and political change. China’s two most important forest protection policies are its National Forest Protection Program (NFPP) and its National-level Nature Reserves (NNRs). The NFPP was implemented in 17 provinces starting in the year 2000 in response to deforestation-caused flooding. We used MODIS data (MOD13Q1) to estimate forest cover and forest loss across mainland China, and we report that 1.765 million km2or 18.7% of mainland China was covered in forest (12.3%, canopy cover > 70%) and woodland (6.4%, 40% ≤ canopy cover < 70%) in 2000. By 2010, a total of 480,203 km2of forest+woodland was lost, amounting to an annual deforestation rate of 2.7%. The forest-only loss was 127,473 km2, or 1.05% annually. The three most rapidly deforested provinces were outside NFPP jurisdiction, in the southeast. Within the NFPP provinces, the annual forest+woodland loss rate was 2.26%, and the forest-only rate was 0.62%. Because these loss rates are likely overestimates, China appears to have achieved, and even exceeded, its NFPP target of reducing deforestation to 1.1% annually in the target provinces. We also assemble the first-ever polygon dataset for China’s forested NNRs (n=237), which covered 74,030 km2in 2000. Conventional unmatched and covariate-matching analyses both find that about two-thirds of China’s NNRs exhibit effectiveness in protecting forest cover and that within-NNR deforestation rates are higher in provinces that have higher overall deforestation.

scholarly journals Combining global tree cover loss data with historical national forest cover maps to look at six decades of deforestation and forest fragmentation in Madagascar

2018 ◽  
Vol 222 ◽  
pp. 189-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ghislain Vieilledent ◽  
Clovis Grinand ◽  
Fety A. Rakotomalala ◽  
Rija Ranaivosoa ◽  
Jean-Roger Rakotoarijaona ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Forest Fragmentation ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Tree Cover ◽  
National Forest ◽  
Loss Data

scholarly journals The national determinants of deforestation in sub-Saharan Africa

2013 ◽  
Vol 368 (1625) ◽  
pp. 20120405 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas K. Rudel
Keyword(s):  
Forest Cover ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
National Level ◽  
Congo Basin ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Urban Migration ◽  
Forest Cover Change ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Sub Saharan

For decades, the dynamics of tropical deforestation in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have defied easy explanation. The rates of deforestation have been lower than elsewhere in the tropics, and the driving forces evident in other places, government new land settlement schemes and industrialized agriculture, have largely been absent in SSA. The context and causes for African deforestation become clearer through an analysis of new, national-level data on forest cover change for SSA countries for the 2000–2005 period. The recent dynamic in SSA varies from dry to wet biomes. Deforestation occurred at faster rates in nations with predominantly dry forests. The wetter Congo basin countries had lower rates of deforestation, in part because tax receipts from oil and mineral industries in this region spurred rural to urban migration, declines in agriculture and increased imports of cereals from abroad. In this respect, the Congo basin countries may be experiencing an oil and mineral fuelled forest transition. Small farmers play a more important role in African deforestation than they do in southeast Asia and Latin America, in part because small-scale agriculture remains one of the few livelihoods open to rural peoples.

scholarly journals Value Chain of Charcoal Production and Implications for Forest Degradation: Case Study of Bié Province, Angola

Environments ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (11) ◽  
pp. 113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vasco Chiteculo ◽  
Bohdan Lojka ◽  
Peter Surový ◽  
Vladimir Verner ◽  
Dimitrios Panagiotidis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Value Chain ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Forest Degradation ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Natural Forests ◽  
Forest Cover Change ◽  
Charcoal Production ◽  
Order Of Magnitude ◽  
Alternative Sources ◽  
Urban Consumption

Forest degradation and forest loss threaten the survival of many species and reduce the ability of forests to provide vital services. Clearing for agriculture in Angola is an important driver of forest degradation and deforestation. Charcoal production for urban consumption as a driver of forest degradation has had alarming impacts on natural forests, as well as on the social and economic livelihood of the rural population. The charcoal impact on forest cover change is in the same order of magnitude as deforestation caused by agricultural expansion. However, there is a need to monitor the linkage between charcoal production and forest degradation. The aim of this paper is to investigate the sequence of the charcoal value chain as a systematic key to identify policies to reduce forest degradation in the province of Bié. It is a detailed study of the charcoal value chain that does not stop on the production and the consumption side. The primary data of this study came from 330 respondents obtained through different methods (semi-structured questionnaire survey and market observation conducted in June to September 2013–2014). A logistic regression (logit) model in IBM SPSS Statistics 24 (IBM Corp, Armonk, NY, USA) was used to analyze the factors influencing the decision of the households to use charcoal for domestic purposes. The finding indicates that 21 to 27 thousand hectares were degraded due to charcoal production. By describing the chain of charcoal, it was possible to access the driving factors for charcoal production and to obtain the first-time overview flow of charcoal from producers to consumers in Bié province. The demand for charcoal in this province is more likely to remain strong if government policies do not aim to employ alternative sources of domestic energy.

Estimating carbon losses from disturbances in tropical moist forests (deforestation and forest degradation) since 2011

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederic Achard ◽  
Christelle Vancutsem ◽  
Valerio Avitabile ◽  
Andreas Langner
Keyword(s):  
Forest Cover ◽  
Moving Average ◽  
Forest Degradation ◽  
Tree Cover ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
Natural Forests ◽  
Carbon Loss ◽  
Average Value ◽  
Large Trees ◽  
Carbon Losses

&lt;p&gt;The need for accurate information to characterize the evolution of forest cover at the tropical scale is widely recognized, particularly to assess carbon losses from processes of disturbances such as deforestation and forest degradation&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;. In fact, the contribution of degradation is a key element for REDD+ activities and is presently mostly ignored in national reporting due to the lack of reliable information at such scale.&lt;br&gt;Recently Vancutsem et al.&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; produced a dataset at 30m resolution which delineates the tropical moist forest (TMF) cover changes from 1990 to 2019. The use of the Landsat historical time-series at high temporal and spatial resolution allows accurate monitoring of deforestation and degradation, from which the carbon losses from disturbances in TMFs can be estimated. A degradation event is defined here as temporary absence of tree cover (visible within a Landsat pixel during a maximum of three years duration) and includes impacts of fires and logging activities.&lt;br&gt;We quantify the annual losses in above-ground carbon stock associated to degradation and deforestation in TMF over the period 2011-2019 by combining the annual disturbances in forest cover derived from the Landsat archive the pan-tropical map of aboveground live woody biomass density (AGB) from Santoro et al.&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt; at 100 m. To reduce the local variability within the estimation of AGB values, we apply a moving average filter under the TMF cover for the year 2010.&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;The carbon loss due to degradation is accounted as full carbon loss within a pixel (like a deforestation). The reason is that logging activities usually remove large trees with higher biomass densities than the average value of the disturbed pixel indicated by the pan-tropical maps. To avoid double counting of carbon removal, deforestation happening after degradation is not accounted as carbon loss.&lt;br&gt;Our results are compared with estimates of previous studies that cover different periods and forest domains: (i) Tyukavina et al.&lt;sup&gt;4&lt;/sup&gt;&amp;#160;provide estimates of carbon loss from deforestation for the period 2000-2012 for all forests (evergreen and deciduous) discriminating natural forests from managed forests, and (ii) Baccini et al.&lt;sup&gt;5 &lt;/sup&gt;provide estimates of carbon loss from deforestation and degradation for the period 2003-2014 for both evergreen and deciduous forests.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In a further step, we will analyze the sensitivity of the results to the input AGB values by applying the same approach to other AGB maps (e.g. Baccini et al. 2012&lt;sup&gt;6&lt;/sup&gt;).&lt;br&gt;Finally we intend to use Sentinel-2 data (10 m) for monitoring the location and extent of logging activities and burnt areas and further improve the estimates of carbon losses from forest degradation.&amp;#160;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;1. Achard F, House JI 2015 doi 10.1088/1748-9326/10/10/101002&lt;br&gt;2. Vancutsem C. et al. 2019 Submitted to Nat. Geoscience&lt;br&gt;3. Santoro M et al. 2018 doi 10.1594/PANGAEA.894711&lt;br&gt;4. Tuykavina A et al 2018 http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/10/7/074002&lt;br&gt;5. Baccini A et al. 2017 doi 10.1126/science.aam5962&lt;br&gt;6. Baccini A et al. 2012 doi 10.1038/nclimate1354&lt;/p&gt;

scholarly journals Global economic and diet transitions drove Latin American and Caribbean forest change during the first decade of the century.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Lopez-Carr ◽  
Sadie Jane Ryan ◽  
Matthew Clark
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Multiple Scales ◽  
Migrant Worker ◽  
National Level ◽  
Environmental Drivers ◽  
Forest Cover Change ◽  
Forest Change ◽  
Forest Regrowth ◽  
Economic Transitions

Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) contain more tropical high-biodiversity forest than the remaining areas of the planet combined, yet experienced more than a third of global deforestation during the first decade of the 21st century. While drivers of forest change occur at multiple scales, we examined forest change at the municipal and national scales integrated with global processes such as capital, commodity, and labor flows. We modeled multi-scale socioeconomic, demographic, and environmental drivers of local forest cover change. Consistent with LAC’s global leadership in soy and beef exports, primarily to China, Russia, the US, and the EU, national-level beef and soy production were the primary land use drivers of decreased forest cover. National level GDPs, migrant worker remittances, and foreign investment, along with municipal-level temperature and area, were also significantly related to reduced forest cover. This challenges forest transition frameworks, which theorize that rising GDP and intensified agricultural production should be increasingly associated with forest regrowth. Instead, LAC forest change was linked to local, national, and global demographic, dietary and economic transitions, resulting in massive net forest cover loss. This suggests an urgent need to reconcile forest conservation with mounting global demand for animal protein.

scholarly journals Comparison and Assessment of Regional and Global Land Cover Datasets for Use in CLASS over Canada

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (19) ◽  
pp. 2286
Author(s):  
Libo Wang ◽  
Paul Bartlett ◽  
Darren Pouliot ◽  
Ed Chan ◽  
Céline Lamarche ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Cover ◽  
Spatial Resolution ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Reference Sample ◽  
Tree Cover ◽  
Initial Surface ◽  
Forest Cover Change ◽  
Global Land Cover ◽  
Global Land

Global land cover information is required to initialize land surface and Earth system models. In recent years, new land cover (LC) datasets at finer spatial resolutions have become available while those currently implemented in most models are outdated. This study assesses the applicability of the Climate Change Initiative (CCI) LC product for use in the Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASS) through comparison with finer resolution datasets over Canada, assisted with reference sample data and a vegetation continuous field tree cover fraction dataset. The results show that in comparison with the finer resolution maps over Canada, the 300 m CCI product provides much improved LC distribution over that from the 1 km GLC2000 dataset currently used to provide initial surface conditions in CLASS. However, the CCI dataset appears to overestimate needleleaf forest cover especially in the taiga-tundra transition zone of northwestern Canada. This may have partly resulted from limited availability of clear sky MEdium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) images used to generate the CCI classification maps due to the long snow cover season in Canada. In addition, changes based on the CCI time series are not always consistent with those from the MODIS or a Landsat-based forest cover change dataset, especially prior to 2003 when only coarse spatial resolution satellite data were available for change detection in the CCI product. It will be helpful for application in global simulations to determine whether these results also apply to other regions with similar landscapes, such as Eurasia. Nevertheless, the detailed LC classes and finer spatial resolution in the CCI dataset provide an improved reference map for use in land surface models in Canada. The results also suggest that uncertainties in the current cross-walking tables are a major source of the often large differences in the plant functional types (PFT) maps, and should be an area of focus in future work.

scholarly journals Change in tropical forest cover of Southeast Asia from 1990 to 2010

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
H.-J. Stibig ◽  
F. Achard ◽  
S. Carboni ◽  
R. Raši ◽  
J. Miettinen
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Satellite Imagery ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Satellite Image ◽  
Image Interpretation ◽  
Important Change ◽  
Automated Classification ◽  
Natural Forests ◽  
Forest Cover Change ◽  
Forest Change

Abstract. The study assesses the extent and trends of forest cover in Southeast Asia for the periods 1990–2000 and 2000–2010 and provides an overview on the main causes of forest cover change. A systematic sample of 418 sites (10 km × 10 km size) located at the one-degree geographical confluence points and covered with satellite imagery of 30 m resolution is used for the assessment. Techniques of image segmentation and automated classification are combined with visual satellite image interpretation and quality control, involving forestry experts from Southeast Asian countries. The accuracy of our results is assessed through an independent consistency assessment, performed from a subsample of 1572 mapping units and resulting in an overall agreement of >85% for the general differentiation of forest cover versus non-forest cover. The total forest cover of Southeast Asia is estimated at 268 Mha in 1990, dropping to 236 Mha in 2010, with annual change rates of 1.75 Mha (∼0.67%) and 1.45 Mha (∼0.59%) for the periods 1990–2000 and 2000–2010, respectively. The vast majority of forest cover loss (∼2 / 3 for 2000–2010) occurred in insular Southeast Asia. Complementing our quantitative results by indicative information on patterns and on processes of forest change, obtained from the screening of satellite imagery and through expert consultation, respectively, confirms the conversion of forest to cash crops plantations (including oil palm) as the main cause of forest loss in Southeast Asia. Logging and the replacement of natural forests by forest plantations are two further important change processes in the region.

scholarly journals Socio-economic factors and management regimes as drivers of tree cover change in Nepal

PeerJ ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. e4855 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sujata Shrestha ◽  
Uttam B. Shrestha ◽  
Kamal Bawa
Keyword(s):  
Forest Cover ◽  
Community Forestry ◽  
Temporal Variations ◽  
Tree Cover ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
Positive Contribution ◽  
Forest Cover Change ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Patterns ◽  
Community Forests ◽  
Socio Economic Factors

Despite the local and global importance of forests, deforestation is driven by various socio-economic and biophysical factors continues in many countries. In Nepal, in response to massive deforestation, the community forestry program has been implemented to reduce deforestation and support livelihoods. After four decades of its inception, the effectiveness of this program on forest cover change remains mostly unknown. This study analyses the spatial and temporal patterns of tree cover change along with a few socio-economic drivers of tree cover change to examine the effectiveness of the community forestry program for conserving forests or in reducing deforestation. We also investigate the socio-economic factors and policy responses as manifested through the community forestry program responsible for the tree cover change at the district level. The total tree cover area in the year 2000 in Nepal was ∼4,746,000 hectares, and our analysis reveals that between 2001 and 2016, Nepal has lost ∼46,000 ha and gained ∼12,200 ha of areas covered by trees with a substantial spatial and temporal variations. After accounting socio-economic drivers of forest cover change, our analysis showed that districts with the larger number of community forests had a minimum loss in tree cover, while districts with the higher proportion of vegetation covered by community forests had a maximum gain in tree cover. This indicates a positive contribution of the community forestry program to reducing deforestation and increasing tree cover.

scholarly journals 30-year changes of natural forests under human activities in the Indochina peninsula - case studies in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Duong Nguyen Dinh ◽  
Cam Lai Vinh
Keyword(s):  
Forest Cover ◽  
Hydrological Cycle ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
Natural Forest ◽  
Infrastructure Development ◽  
Natural Forests ◽  
Forest Cover Change ◽  
Remotely Sensed Data ◽  
Automated Method

Natural forests are a basic component of the earth's ecology. It is essential for biodiversity, hydrological cycle regulation, and environmental protection. Natural forests are gradually degraded and reduced due to timber logging, conversion to cropland, production forests, commodity trees, and infrastructure development. Decreasing natural forests results in loss of valuable habitats, land degradation, soil erosion, and imbalance of water cycle on the regional scale. Thus, operational monitoring of natural forest cover change has been in the interest of scientists for a long time. Current forest mapping methods using remotely sensed data provide limited capability to separate natural forests and planted forests. Natural forest statistics are often generated using official forestry national reports that have different bias levels due to different methodologies applied in different countries in forest inventory. Over the last couple of decades, natural forests have been over-exploited for various reasons. This led to forest cover degradation and water regulation capability, which results in extreme floods and drought of a watershed in general. This situation demands an urgent need to develop a fast, reliable, and automated method for mapping natural forests. In this study, by applying a new method for mapping natural forests by Landsat time series, the authors succeeded in mapping changes of natural forests of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam from 1989 to 2018. As a focused study area, three provinces: Ratanakiri of Cambodia, Attapeu of Laos, and Kon Tum of Vietnam were selected. The study reveals that after 30 years, 51.3% of natural forests in Ratanakiri, 27.8% of natural forests in Attapeu, and 50% of natural forests in Kon Tum were lost. Classification results were validated using high spatial resolution imagery of Google Earth. The overall accuracy of 99.3% for the year 2018 was achieved.

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