{"id":2108,"date":"2021-11-24T14:15:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-24T14:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eodatahub.com\/index.php\/2021\/11\/24\/landsat-9-serves-as-backbone-of-efforts-to-reduce-deforestation-and-forest-degradation\/"},"modified":"2021-11-24T14:15:00","modified_gmt":"2021-11-24T14:15:00","slug":"landsat-9-serves-as-backbone-of-efforts-to-reduce-deforestation-and-forest-degradation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eodatahub.com\/index.php\/2021\/11\/24\/landsat-9-serves-as-backbone-of-efforts-to-reduce-deforestation-and-forest-degradation\/","title":{"rendered":"Landsat 9 Serves as Backbone of Efforts to Reduce Deforestation and Forest Degradation"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

International partners and collaborators were interviewed on site at the launch of Landsat 9 about their use of Landsat data and their role in the program for Episode 61 of the USGS EROS podcast “Eyes on Earth.”<\/a><\/p>\n

Andres Espejo is a Senior Forest Carbon Specialist working for the World Bank\u2019s Climate Change Group. His position involves the management of $1 billion in result-based financing to forest countries for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. Payments to forest countries are dependent on measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) systems for emissions reductions. There are currently 18 countries participating across Africa, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific Region.<\/p>\n

The Landsat program has been a critical partner for several reasons. First, monitoring deforestation across wide swaths of remote forests simply cannot be done without the help of Earth observation satellites. Second, Landsat data is available at no cost to the user, in multiple formats, for bulk users running near-real time monitoring algorithms and to individual researchers working in cloud environments or with desktop setups. Third, and perhaps most importantly, Landsat is the only Earth observation system with a record long enough to set the historical parameters by which long-term progress can be measured.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s really the cornerstone,\u201d Espejo said in September just before the launch of Landsat 9. \u201cYou can establish forest inventories, you can conduct terrestrial inventories, but in many of these countries, you didn’t have anything in the past, so you cannot establish a baseline. The only way to do that is with historical imagery, and the only systematic observation of the Earth that we have all the way (back) is Landsat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Espejo works closely with Naikoa Aguilar-Amuchastegui of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), an organization with a presence in more than 100 countries. As the WWF\u2019s Senior Director of Forest Carbon Science and MRV Lead, Aguilar-Amuchastegui works to educate research and technical teams in developing countries on how to use satellite data to track deforestation.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not the first step, however. Before an MRV system can even begin to collect and return emissions reduction data in exchange for payments, Aguilar-Amuchastegui said, the countries need to agree to a historical benchmark. As Aguilar-Amuchastegui and his team work with local experts to explain what Landsat data say or don\u2019t say about a nation\u2019s carbon stocks and land change patterns, they\u2019re working on what he calls \u201cdata-informed political statements.\u201d<\/p>\n

Download Video<\/a><\/p>\n

Video Transcript<\/p>\n

Landsat 9 is a partnership between NASA and USGS. The satellite will continue the Landsat program\u2019s mission to capture repeat snapshots of Earth to monitor, understand and manage natural resources.<\/p>\n

PK Cascio, USGS Office of Communications and Publishing<\/p>\n

Once established, those statements act as an official designation of the benchmark of deforestation and degradation for a participating country. From there, agreements can be reached on compensation for downward deviations that reduce atmospheric carbon across the globe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means okay, as a country, I claim that this is my benchmark, and I therefore expect that my performance will be assessed in one way or another based on that,\u201d Aguilar-Amuchastegui said.<\/p>\n

Landsat\u2019s historical record makes it \u201cthe only sensor \u2026 that allows for an actual understanding of what is a historical pattern. What is natural dynamics versus man-made dynamics? \u00a0And then what is it that we are going to do about it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Questions of that nature also drive a wider-ranging program from the U.S. Geological Survey called the Land Use and Carbon Scenario Simulator (LUCAS),<\/a> developed by research geographer Benjamin Sleeter of the Western Geographic Science Center. The depth of Landsat\u2019s historical archive makes it possible for the LUCAS Model to analyze the interplay of land cover and carbon sequestration through scenario-based projections of landscape change within the conterminous United States.<\/p>\n

Deforestation and forest degradation factor into LUCAS modeling, with Landsat\u2019s deep archive serving as a foundational tool for defining historical patterns of change.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of the temporal record, it\u2019s able to build up land use histories. That\u2019s a lot of what we do with LUCAS,\u201d Sleeter said.<\/p>\n

LUCAS models scenarios on forest changes from wildfires or forest harvest, but also looks at agriculture expansion and contraction and changes to wetlands, grasslands, or urban environments, all with an eye to how those changes might impact carbon stocks.<\/p>\n

Forests hold the largest carbon stocks, which makes deforestation and degradation monitoring programs like those spearheaded by WWF and World Bank especially important for the mitigation of climate change. Not all disruptions are negative, of course\u2014wildfires are natural forces that can help reset ecosystems for long-term survival, for example\u2014but wide-scale, man-made changes to heavily forested areas can have out-sized impacts on the carbon cycle.<\/p>\n

\u201cForests are the drivers of carbon storage,\u201d Sleeter said. \u201cThere are other ecosystems that can sequester and store carbon, like coastal wetlands, which can sequester a lot of carbon into soils. But how much area do they cover? When you\u2019re looking at large areas, forests are really the story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other factors also explain Landsat 9\u2019s value to deforestation mitigation programs in developing nations, which may lack the infrastructure and resources to lean on newer satellite data sources. Landsat 9\u2019s launch signals a long-term commitment to the mission, Espejo said, and therefore to the availability and stability of the bedrock data source behind MRV systems.<\/p>\n

Also important: Data gathered by Landsat 9\u2019s Operational Land Imager-2 and Thermal Infrared Sensor-2 will be very similar to that gathered by Landsat 8\u2019s sensors. That means MRV systems developed using Landsat 8 needn\u2019t be overhauled to handle a markedly different data stream, and the technicians operating those systems and reporting back to the World Bank won\u2019t contend with a steep learning curve.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m glad, because (a different sensor) could bring more noise into the system and create some complexities,\u201d Espejo said. \u201cAnd this will basically strengthen the capabilities of Landsat 8.\u201d<\/p>\n

USGS News: Landsat MissionsRead More<\/a> <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

International partners and collaborators were interviewed on site at the launch of Landsat 9 about their use of Landsat data and their role in the program for Episode 61 of the USGS EROS podcast “Eyes on Earth.” Andres Espejo is a Senior Forest Carbon Specialist working for the World Bank\u2019s Climate Change Group. His position…
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