New Tools Could Revolutionize Monitoring of Land Use Change

To avoid the worst effects of climate change, the role of carbon sequestration in forests and sustainable forestry products must be recognized.  In land use management decisions, a balance between sustainable land use and resource conservation must be achieved.  Quantifying land use change from human activities is difficult and, until recently, has been virtually impossible to understand in real-time, thus complicating the sustainable management of resources.  Surveys are expensive, time consuming and unrealistic in many regions of the world.  Real-time data provided by satellites could revolutionize forestry, agriculture, and our understanding of the carbon cycle. 

On July 2, the National Air and Space Administration’s (NASA) Deep Carbon Observatory launched the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2), which will be wholly dedicated to measuring global levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4).  OCO-2 was built after the loss of OCO-1 during launch in 2009.  After the loss of the first satellite, NASA collaborated with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and its Greenhouse gas Observing SATellite (GOSAT or Ibuki for short). OCO-2 will provide an enhanced global greenhouse gas (GHG) emission inventory, as well as help to better understand carbon sources and sinks.  Additionally, NASA is confident that OCO-2 will eventually be able to measure emissions on a land mass as small as 60x60 km! According to Michael Gunson, project scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, quantifying carbon sinks is key. “Knowing what parts of Earth are helping to remove carbon from our atmosphere will help us understand whether they can keep on doing so in (the) future.”  The data from OCO-2 and GOSAT can also be combined with satellite imagery to better answer questions about changes in agricultural growing seasons, crop productivity, forest health, and other inquiries. 

Meanwhile, interesting findings are already coming from the World Resource Institute’s (WRI) Global Forest Watch, launched in February of this year.  The initiative, a partnership between WRI and partners including ESRI, Google, USAID and others, draws on data from a variety of sources to supply a somewhat real-time image of tree cover losses and gains globally.  The database was recently used as part of a meta-analysis of the relationship between forest cover and community forest rights in areas where indigenous people depend heavily on forests.  The report, “Securing Rights, Combating Climate Change,” found that indigenous and traditional communities were the best stewards of forests in the developing world.  According to WRI, in 14 countries, approximately 70 percent of the forests are community-owned, but only a small portion of these forests are formally recognized by governments as community-owned. In countries where the government has recognized community forest laws, forests were healthier and less clear-cutting had occurred. 

In Canada, Global Forest Watch data was used along with satellite imagery from at least 20 years to catalog Canada’s boreal forest.  While the most complete boreal forest in the world, the satellite images also show that these forests are increasingly threatened by tar sands extraction, with forest cover losses reaching 20 percent in some areas.  According to Global Forest Watch, “regularly updated satellite imagery at medium and fine resolutions allows us to see how forests are changing, spot where forest loss is occurring, and identify potential culprits. This data provides a consistent basis on which to quantify threats to the boreal ecosystem.”  This is only the beginning of what this type of information can provide.  Andrew Steer, President and CEO of WRI, imagines a future where companies can look at real-time data to ensure that suppliers are managing land sustainably.  As an example, Indonesian palm oil suppliers could be checked to make sure their fields were not encroaching on protected forests, and companies could ensure their suppliers were complying with sustainability agreements. Here in the United States, such sources of data can contribute to more accurate lifecycle assessments for biofuels crops, a critical component in ensuring that biomass crops lower greenhouse gases as compared to fossil fuel use. Globally, it is critical to strike a balance between use and preservation of resources, to combat climate change, and to ensure the health and well being of the global community.

For more information see:

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 – Opportunities for Deep Carbon Research, NASA 

NASA to launch CO2-tracking satellite, The Gaurdian 

Securing Rights, Combating Climate Change, World Resources Institute 

Shocking satellite images expose tar sands damage to boreal forest, CopyCarbon