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»FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA 2010), Remote Sensing
Survey
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and its member countries and partners
will conduct a global remote sensing survey of forests. This is part of the Global Forest Resources
Assessment 2010 (FRA 2010).
For more information on the FRA 2010 and the Remote Sensing Survey, visit:
< http://www.fao.org/forestry/fra2010-remotesensing/en/ >,
and < http://www.fao.org/forestry/media/16300/1/0/ >
(brochure),
» Global Observation of Forest and Land Cover Dynamics
(GOFC-GOLD)
GOFC-GOLD is a panel of GTOS (Global Terrestrial Observing System) and its overall objective is to
improve the quality and availability of observations of forests and land cover at regional and global
scales and to produce useful, timely and validated information products from these data for a wide variety
of users.
For more information on GOFC-GOLD, visit:
< http://www.fao.org/gtos/gofc-gold/ >
GOFC-GOLD provides a sourcebook on methods and procedures for monitoring, measuring and
reporting activities related to REDD. Find more information about the GOFC-GOLD REDD
sourcebook under:
< Other Methodologies and
Tools >
In partnership with the Government of Norway, GOFC-GOLD has carried out a study to understand the needs to
monitor REDD in the world's tropical forests. This study examines, in 99 tropical
non-Annex I countries, the current monitoring capabilities and the availability of remote sensing data and
makes specific recommendations for the near term capacity development activities that would be required to
implement an accurate forest area change and carbon monitoring system. Find more information about
this study at:
< http://www.gofcgold.wur.nl/redd/ > and
under: < Other Methodologies and
Tools >
» U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA)
NASA’s Land-cover and Land-Use Change (LCLUC) program within its Earth Science Enterprise seeks to
further the scientific understanding of the consequences of land-cover and land-use change for continued
provision of ecological goods and services, the carbon and water cycles and the management of natural
resources. It uses NASA’s remote sensing technology to monitor global land cover change and
improve understanding of human interaction with the environment, and thus provide a scientific foundation
for sustainability, vulnerability and resilience of land systems and their use.
NASA LCLUC is also involved in a joint initiative with the US Geological Survey (USGS), called the
“Global Land Survey” (GLS). Moderate resolution (c. 30m) data are useful for monitoring
forest change, but the cost of using such data has been prohibitively high for some resources managers and
scientists working in tropical forest countries. GLS will make freely available a global time-series
of moderate resolution satellite data, preprocessed to be directly comparable between dates
(orthorectified) for studying forest and land cover change. Currently NASA and USGS are generating a
data set for c. 2005, which will complement previous global data sets for 1980, 1990, and 2000. The
plan for the 2010 data set is to develop this into an international initiative in the framework of the
Group on Earth Observations (GEO), by including data from various international satellites of similar
resolution. Partnerships are currently being sought for this international collaboration.
NASA LCLUC also supports several large regional science campaigns and programs, including the Large Scale
Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia, the Central African Regional Program for the Environment, the
Northern Eurasian Earth Science Partnership Initiative, and the Monsoon Asia Integrated Regional
Study. LCLUC is also a contributor to the international Global Observation of Forest and Land Cover
Dynamics (GOFC-GOLD) program, a project of the Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS).
For more information on NASA’s LULUC program, visit:
< http://lcluc.umd.edu/index.asp >
» U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
USGS has a record of partnerships with developing countries studying land use, resource management, and
climate related issues. The international science team at the USGS' Earth Resources Observation and
Science Center (EROS) has cooperative projects with developing countries, using satellite based data to
monitor the changes to land cover features. Additionally, the North American Node of UNEP GRID, located at
the USGS EROS Center, is in the forefront of applying information technology tools such as remote sensing,
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and web mapping to address the relationships between the environment
and human populations. Utilizing the expert knowledge of staff and visiting scientists, the information
created with these tools provide policy-makers a scientific basis for making decisions.
USGS is also releasing satellite data at no cost. By the end of 2008 the entire archive of data
collected from the Landsat series, as far back as 1972 and current daily new acquisitions, will be
available over the Internet. This release will make land observation data available to a global
science community for monitoring land surface changes over a multi-decade period.
Landsat scenes can be previewed and downloaded using the USGS Global Visualization Viewer at < http://glovis.usgs.gov > or through Earth Explorer at
< http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov >.
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