The achievement of international goals and national commitments related to forest conservation and management, climate change, and sustainable development requires credible, accurate, and reliable monitoring of stocks and changes in forest biomass and carbon. Most prominently, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals in particular require data on biomass to monitor progress. Unprecedented opportunities to provide forest biomass data are created by a series of upcoming space-based missions, many of which provide open data targeted at large areas and better spatial resolution biomass monitoring than has previously been achieved. We assess various policy needs for biomass data and recommend a long-term collaborative effort among forest biomass data producers and users to meet these needs. A gap remains, however, between what can be achieved in the research domain and what is required to support policy making and meet reporting requirements. There is no single biomass dataset that serves all users in terms of definition and type of biomass measurement, geographic area, and uncertainty requirements, and whether there is need for the most recent up-to-date biomass estimate or a long-term biomass trend. The research and user communities should embrace the potential strength of the multitude of upcoming missions in combination to provide for these varying needs and to ensure continuity for long-term data provision which one-off research missions cannot provide. International coordination bodies such as Global Forest Observations Initiative (GFOI), Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS), and Global Observation of Forest Cover and Land Dynamics (GOFC-GOLD) will be integral in addressing these issues in a way that fulfils these needs in a timely fashion. Further coordination work should particularly look into how space-based data can be better linked with field reference data sources such as forest plot networks, and there is also a need to ensure that reference data cover a range of forest types, management regimes, and disturbance regimes worldwide.
1.Wageningen Univ & Res, Lab Geoinformat Sci & Remote Sensing, Droevendaalsesteeg 3, NL-6708 PB Wageningen, Netherlands 2.European Commiss, Joint Res Ctr, Via E Fermi 2749, I-21027 Ispra, Italy 3.World Bank, Climate Change Grp, 1818 H St NW, Washington, DC 20433 USA 4.UN, Food & Agr Org, UN REDD Programme, REDD Team,NFM Grp, Viale Terme di Caracalla, I-00193 Rome, Italy 5.Aberystwyth Univ, Earth Observat & Ecosyst Dynam Res Grp, DGES, Aberystwyth SY23 3DB, Ceredigion, Wales 6.Univ New South Wales, Ctr Ecosyst Sci, Sch Biol Earth & Environm Sci BEES, High St, Kensington, NSW 2052, Australia 7.US Forest Serv, Northern Res Stn, St Paul, MN 55108 USA 8.Norwegian Univ Life Sci, Fac Environm Sci & Nat Resource Management, POB 5003, N-1432 As, Norway 9.Natl Phys Lab, Hampton Rd, Teddington TW11 0LW, Middx, England 10.World Resources Inst, Washington, DC 20002 USA 11.Solo Earth Observat SoloEO, Tokyo 1040054, Japan 12.ESA ESRIN, Via Galileo Galilei, Frascati, Italy 13.Univ Basque Country, BC3, Sede Bldg 1,1st Floor,Sci Campus, Leioa 48940, Spain
Recommended Citation:
Herold, Martin,Carter, Sarah,Avitabile, Valerio,et al. The Role and Need for Space-Based Forest Biomass-Related Measurements in Environmental Management and Policy[J]. SURVEYS IN GEOPHYSICS,2019-01-01,40(4):757-778