Global Observation of Forest Cover

1
Global Observation of Forest Cover

• Status Report
• Frank Ahern
• Presenting on behalf of GOFC Team

2
GOFC Design Team Co-Chairs

• Frank Ahern, CCRS
• Peter Churchill, EC/JRC
• Tony Janetos, NASA/WRI
• Tom Loveland, USGS/EDC
• Martha Maiden, NASA
• David Skole, IGBP, MSU
• Zhiliang Zhu, USGS/EDC

• Alan Belward, EC/JRC
• Robert Davis, UN/FAO
• Chris Justice, IGBP, Uva
• Jean-Paul Malingreau, EC
• Victor Taylor, NASDA
• Yoshifumi Yasuoka, U Tokyo

3
Why IGOS?

• To improve use of E-O data to address major
  problems of global concern
• To improve coordination of national programs
• To improve co-operation between providers and
  users of E-O data for global applications.

4
Why GOFC?

• GOFC is a project created by CEOS to test the
  IGOS concept
• Forest problems have become global in magnitude
  and concern
• Earth observation is the only technology capable
  of providing consistent information forests on
  continental and global scales when combined with
  in-situ data it can provide an important
  component of national programs.
• Timing

5
Timing

• Recent and current programs provide a basis to
  build upon and confidence we can make progress
• Current and upcoming sensors will improve our
  forest monitoring capacity, but integrative work
  needs to be done
• Kyoto protocol provides new relevance
• Recent severe forest fires in many parts of the
  world provide increased sense of urgency.

6
GOFC Heritage

• ISY/World Forest Watch (INPE)
• TREES (EC/JRC)
• Landsat Pathfinder (USA)
• global fire mapping (IGBP/ESA)
• CORINE (EC/JRC)
• PRODES (INPE)

• 1 km land cover (IGBP)
• FRA90 (FAO)
• GRFM/GBFM (NASDA)
• NALC (USA)
• IGBP-DIS High Resolution Project
• many national and regional land cover and forest
  cover initiatives

7
What we are proposing

• Assembling existing datasets
• Demonstrations of operational forest monitoring
  through prototype projects
• Develop consensus algorithms and standard
  methodologies
• Coordination and articulation of user
  requirements
• Working toward ongoing operations

8
Three primary themes

• Forest fire mapping and monitoring
• Forest cover characteristics and changes
• Forest biophysical functioning

9
Forest fire mapping and monitoring

• Near-real-time monitoring of fires
• Post-season mapping of large burned areas
• Can build on current capabilities and plans
  (FireM3, World Fire Web, MODIS fire products)
• Provides rapid indication of forest cover change
• With additional modeling, can provide information
  on carbon emissions.

10
Forest cover characteristics and changes

• Combines global coverage at coarse resolution
  with targeted coverage at fine resolution
• Wall-to-wall coverage of forests every 5 years
  (with coarse and fine data)
• Sophisticated data acquisition strategy using
  coarse resolution optical (250 m - 1 km), fixed
  and pointable fine resolution optical (20-30 m),
  and microwave sensors
• Forest cover characteristics leaf type, leaf
  longevity, per-cent canopy cover, canopy height
• Forest cover change forest to non-forest,
  non-forest to forest, and no change.

11
Forest biophysical functioning

• Global coverage with coarse sensors
• Desired products LAI, PAR, FPAR, NPP, forest
  biomass
• Additional research is needed
• GOFC can facilitate international liason
• New sensor(s) are desirable for forest biomass
• Vegetation Canopy Lidar
• P-band SAR

12
Interest in proposed theme areas
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GOFC recommendations to CEOS

• Provide and process essential data
• Support technology and documentation
• Promote co-operation
• Provide leadership for pilot projects

14
Provide and process essential data

• Acquire and process the data needed to accomplish
  GOFC objectives
• Work cooperatively to ensure long-term continuity
  of essential data
• Promote the development and implementation of
  efficient production systems to lower the cost of
  large-volume earth-observation datasets
• Sensor development
• Improve coarse resolution to 250 - 500 m
• New sensor(s) for forest biomass
• VCL
• P-band SAR

15
Support Technology and Documentation

• Encourage CEOS members to provide user-friendly
  on-line facilities to access metadata and
  quicklook images for all archival data (with
  WGISS)
• Promote the standardization and documentation of
  data products from optical and SAR satellites
  (with WGISS)
• Support RD to develop a capability to estimate
  forest biomass from space.

16
Promote co-operation

• In co-operation with GTOS and TOPC, help expand,
  establish, and maintain a network of test sites
  to validate GOFC experimental products (with
  WGCV)
• Develop a relationship with research, forest
  management, and policy agencies to facilitate,
  for example, reporting for international
  protocols and treaties.
• Develop and document calibration/validation
  protocols for earth-observation data and derived
  products generated for GOFC (with WGCV)
• Facilitate a constructive relationship with
  vendors of hyperspatial resolution (1-3m) data.
  This will assist in the validation of derived
  products.

17
Current status

• On-going interactions with CEOS-SIT
• Primary focus on carbon sinks
• Canada joining World Fire Web project through
  FireM3
• Exploring possible pilot projects for Forest
  Cover Characteristics and Changes
• GOFC Website initiation is imminent
• Workshop for input from tropical forest
  specialists hosted by IGBP-START Washington,
  March 15-17, 1999.