Monitoring Forest Cover at Global Scale: The JRC Approach

Research groups at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) have been heavily involved in the development of methods for monitoring forest cover resources in a global perspective. A JRC project aims at estimating forest cover changes for the periods 1990-2000-2005 based on a systematic sample of medium resolution satellite imagery from pan-tropical to sub-regional levels. The project is carried out in a collaborative partnership with FAO by supporting the remote sensing survey of the FAO Forest Resources Assessment 2010 programme. An operational system is being developed for the processing and change assessment of multi-temporal (3 dates) 30-m resolution imagery over circa 4,000 sample sites over the tropics. The paper presents the objectives and the status of the project including the steps of data collection, processing chain and pilot study over test sites. The future steps required to develop a full operational system will also be presented.

ACHARD Frederic;  BEUCHLE Rene';  BODART Catherine;  BRINK Andreas;  CARBONI S.;  EVA Hugh;  MAYAUX Philippe;  RASI Rastislav;  SIMONETTI Dario;  STIBIG Hans-Jurgen; 

2009-07-14

Joint Research Centre of the European Commission

JRC52128

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC52128,