2020 Remote Sensing Survey

Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA)

December 2019 / Issue #3
 

Welcome to the third issue of the progress report
of the Global Forest Resources Assessment 
2020 Remote Sensing Survey

Issue #1

Issue #2


The FAO conducts a Remote Sensing Survey (RSS) as part of the Global Forest Resources Assessment in close collaboration with FAO Members. The objectives of the survey are to build country capacities to use remote sensing for forest monitoring as well as to generate independent, robust and consistent estimates of forest area and its changes over time at global, regional and biome levels.

This progress report is part of a series of communications that provides updates on the data collection process and supports the building of a global network of skilled photo interpreters.
Check out the NEW webpage of the FRA 2020 Remote Sensing Survey

The objective of the FRA 2020 remote sensing survey is to assess roughly 430 000 samples by June 2020, engaging more than 800 experts from all over the world in the interpretation of remote sensing imagery.

Indicators of progress
124k samples completed so far out of 430k

SAMPLES
COLLECTED
62 countries and territories involved

COUNTRIES AND TERRITORIES
343 national experts trained and engaged in the visual interpretation

PHOTO INTERPRETERS

Insights from the field: dry forest in Kanchanaburi, Thailand

Near the city of Kanchanaburi, Thailand, a plot falling in the Kajka community forest was visited. It is a clear example of dry forest that is not easily detectable through satellite imagery due to the low reflectance of the trees that lose their leaves during the dry season.

This place was a sugarcane plantation until 1960 but now, after 45 years of regrowth, it is covered by a deciduous secondary dry forest.

However, none of the global tree cover maps classify this area as forest. This illustrates the importance of incorporating ground-truth data in automatized satellite image classification processes especially in dry forest areas.  
 
Sentinel2 for the year 2018.
Google Earth high resolution image for the year 2018.                     
Drone image collected during the field trip, 2018.                                                                
Participants walking in the forest inside the plot.                                             

Data collection workshops

Data collection is conducted through participatory and collaborative approaches, engaging national experts in learning-by-doing training sessions on the latest remote sensing methodology and tools, including the Collect Earth Online platform which FAO has developed in collaboration with NASA and Google.


Next workshop for data collection

  • Central Africa: 3 - 8 February 2020, Arusha, Tanzania
 
Participants in the regional workshop for South East Asia in Bangkok, Thailand.

Past workshops

Regional

  • Central America: 25 - 30 November 2019, Panama city, Panama Check out and re-tweet
  • South America: 18 - 23 November 2019, Quito, Ecuador Check out and re-tweet
  • East Africa: 29 July - 3 August 2019, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Read more
  • Southern Africa: 8 - 13 July 2019, Maputo, Mozambique
  • South East Asia: 29 October - 2 November 2018, Bangkok, Thailand 
  • Caribbean: 27 - 31 August 2018, Bridgetown, Barbados

National

  • Democratic Republic of Congo: 10 - 16 December 2019, Kinshasa. Read more
  • Comoros, Madagascar, Seychelles: 2 - 7 December 2019, Mantasoa. Read more (French)
  • Paraguay: 4 - 9 November 2019, Asunción. Watch the video
  • Indonesia: 24 June - 2 July 2019, Kuta, Bali. Read more
  • Brazil: 27 May - 1 June 2019, Belem. Read more 
  • Mexico: 20 - 26 May 2019, Akumal, Quintana Roo. Read more (Spanish)
  • China: 8 - 13 April 2019, Xi’an. Read more
  • India: 11 - 16 March 2019. Dehradun, Uttrakhand. Read more
  • Argentina, Chile and Uruguay: 26 - 31 August 2019, Termas de Reyes

New FAO report on drylands: geospatial data and a global network of partnerships 
report cover

Global drylands contain more than one-quarter of the world's forest area, according to the new report launched by FAO at the High-Level Meeting on Forests at the U.N. COP25 climate summit.

Trees, forests and land use in drylands: The first global assessment was done using FAO's Open Foris Collect Earth tool to assess more than 200 000 sample sites with visual interpretation of satellite images.

The assessment engaged more than 200 experts in a series of regional workshops in collaboration with partner universities, research institutes, governments and non-governmental organizations worldwide.
Download the report

More on FAO's work on forest monitoring

  • Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA)

  • National Forest Monitoring (NFM)

  • Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) 

  • System for earth observations, data access, processing & analysis for land monitoring (SEPAL)

  • Open Foris
 
Photo credits:
©2018 Sentinel-2
©2019 Maxar technologies (Google Earth)
©2018 Adolfo Kindgard
©Pawinee Sodsangchan



With financial support from
European Union
Norway's International Climate and Forest Initiative
See online version

CONTACT 
For more information visit:  http://www.fao.org/forest-resources-assessment/remote-sensing/fra-2020-remote-sensing-survey/en/

or contact us at: FRA@fao.org


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