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News  Satellites support Kyoto Protocol through forest mapping service
A prototype service utilising satellites for mapping forests to aid compliance with the Kyoto Protocol has been endorsed by end users from European countries – one environmental ministry representative called the baseline carbon stock information provided a "goldmine". ESA's Kyoto-Inventory service has been designed to produce information products on changing land use associated with carbon 'sinks' or 'sources' that can support national governments' reporting requirements to the Kyoto Protocol. This three-year demonstration service has now formally ended, but activities are set to continue under the banner of a broader project called GSE-Forest Monitoring.
It is generally accepted fact that the global climate is heating up, and increased human-induced emissions of 'greenhouse gases' – chief among them carbon dioxide – is the main reason why. The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which entered into force on 16 February 2005, commits its signatories to limit overall emissions of these gases.
What the Protocol requires for such offsetting to take place is annual reporting of land use changes – especially afforestation, reforestation and deforestation (ARD) - associated with shifts in the terrestrial carbon stock, to be carried out at the national level.
ESA has a long-standing interest in applying Earth Observation to strengthen the effectiveness of international conventions, so work began on the Kyoto-Inventory service for land cover mapping, supported through the Agency's Data User Programme – back in November 2002. Data from satellites including ERS, Landsat, Proba and SPOT were utilised to produce forest maps, land use and land use change maps covering 1990, 1997 and 2002 across 200 234 square kilometres of European territory.
To mark the conclusion of the three-year project, a one-day workshop took place on 2 November at ESRIN, ESA's Europe Centre for Earth Observation in Frascati, Italy, attended by staff of institutions responsible for preparing carbon inventories for Kyoto as well as researchers and experts working in climate policy and technical issues related to monitoring, reporting and accounting.
José Romero of the Swiss Agency for the Environment, Forests and Landscapes (SAEFL – being renamed the Federal Office for the Environment in 2006) stated he regarded satellite-derived products of this type as key input data for national greenhouse gas reporting.
Validation activities had been carried out by project partner Agriconsulting, and also checked against the country's detailed 'Arealstatistik' land use map data, compiled once every 12 years.
"We have found in general a good description of different zones, including differentiating between coniferous and deciduous tree species," Romero said. "There is some confusion between open forest and grassland, although only for a small fraction of the area covered." The overall product accuracy ranged from 90 to 95%.
Paasman added: "The real ESA goldmine – where Kyoto-Inventory fits right into our current efforts – is the baseline 1990 data it provides, which is needed to measure subsequent changes in carbon stock."
Antonio Lumicisi of Italy's Ministry of the Environment (Ministero dell'Ambiente e della Tutela del Territorio, MATT) recounted that Kyoto-Inventory service coverage ranged across five complete regions of the country, with very different geographical characteristics and forest types: Lombardy, Abruzzo, Molise, Toscana and Calabria.
They are being checked against Regional Forest Inventories carried out by regional administrations as well as the European Commission's CORINE 2000 Land Cover Map, with validation for Molise still to be completed.
Lumicisi reported that results so far showed a thematic accuracy of 89.9 to 94.4%, concluding: "We do believe in the importance of this effort and that great results can be achieved."
The products were supplementing the country's ten-yearly National Forest Inventory effort, data from which was being used for ground truth purposes. Sánchez declared the products matched user specifications, thanks to the combined efforts of the processing team and the National Institute for Agricultural and Food Research and Technology (INIA), consultant to the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, which provided precious territorial knowledge and made good results possible, notwithstanding the short time Spain was involved in the project with respect to other countries.
Still some peculiarities of the Spanish regions need improvements, like the so-called 'dehesas', which are open forest with a 5-15% tree crown cover, sometimes classified as shrubland. Overall Sánchez pronounced this new information source as "very helpful", especially for providing a uniform approach for the whole country.
In addition the Kyoto-Inventory product had the special strength of being derived within a short time, making it a "quick" product that is extremely helpful in areas with a high rate of change, requiring frequent land use updates.
The Kyoto-Inventory project may be over, but the work continues - and is being scaled up - within a service called GSE Forest Monitoring. Having begun in 2003 with a consolidation phase, this October a fully operational forest and land use monitoring system offering standardised information products mainly based on Earth Observation has begun. Rainier Fockelmann of GSE Forest Monitoring project manager GAF AG briefed the workshop on the project so far. Within Europe, GSE Forest Monitoring has core users in Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Poland, Russia and Sweden – in addition to the users involved in Kyoto-Inventory - and is providing pan-European coverage to the European Environment Agency (EEA). On a global scale, the service is also working with countries including Indonesia, Namibia, and South Africa, and includes the evaluation of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) afforestation in developing countries. GSE Forest Monitoring is being carried out as part of the initial portfolio of services offered through Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES), a joint initiative between ESA and the European Union to build a global monitoring capability in support of Europe's environmental and sustainable development goals.
Kyoto-Inventory and GSE Forest Monitoring results are being jointly presented to the 8-10 000 delegates attending this month's United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal.
Kyoto-Inventory partners Led by Intecs, the Kyoto-Inventory consortium comprises Agriconsulting, Dataspazio, Planetek Italia, the University of Trento and Telespazio – all from Italy – and NEO BV from the Netherlands.
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