As you may remember, the European wide biomass mapping in the FCM project is conducted with the BIOMASAR approach developed by Gamma Remote Sensing. The same approach is used for the global biomass mapping conducted in the ESA CCI Biomass project. In the FCM project, the method is finetuned for European conditions and high resolution (20 m ) mapping. The approach is based on growing stock volume (GSV) estimation, which is subsequently converted to above and below ground biomass. The mapping uses only spaceborne radar sensors.
Carbon Monitoring
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With all the challenges that the world is facing nowadays, it is increasingly important that science is closely integrated into our thinking and our everyday lives to support the choices we make. To highlight the significant role of science in society and the need to engage the wider public in debates on emerging scientific issues, the United Nations celebrates the annual World Science Day for Peace and Development on the 10th November. The day aims to underline the importance and relevance of science in our daily lives.
While waiting for our Colombian field crews to finish their work in the jungle, we would like to highlight why these kinds of field measurement campaigns are so important. Nowadays, with the increasing need for information on forest biomass to meet compliance and voluntary reporting requirements, many people look into satellite data as the saviour.
Perhaps one of the most exciting demonstrations to be conducted during the FCM continuation is the Colombian use case. The overall aim is to highlight the feasibility of the FCM methods to meet the requirements of the new Verra Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) for REDD+ projects.
The overall aim of the Forest Carbon Monitoring (FCM) project is to develop remote sensing-based, user-centric approaches for forest carbon monitoring. The project implements remote sensing-based monitoring tools to be used on online platforms. In the main project that ended in July 2023, prototype tools were successfully implemented and their functionalities demonstrated.
While waiting for the finalization of the plans for the project extension, we would like to highlight some key developments that took place since the end of the main phase of the Forest Carbon Monitoring (FCM) project. The project was highlighted in several occasions in different types of events and media.
After a longer than expected hiatus, it is now confirmed that we will get a further 18 months of funding from ESA to continue the work on the Forest Carbon Platform development. This allows us to focus on the topics that require further development and demonstrate the functionality of the improved approaches on practical use cases designed to meet specific user needs.
As unbelievable as it sounds, two years have passed since the Forest Carbon Monitoring started. This means that we are reaching the end of the current project. The project set out to implement a prototype of an operational remote sensing-based monitoring platform offering a cloud processing system for forest biomass and carbon monitoring. The platform...
Good news! The Forest Carbon Monitoring prototype product portal has been officially launched. Through this portal you can view and download all the prototype products that have been produced with openly available datasets. You can find more information on the specifications of the demonstrations at the ‘Demonstrations’ page.
Another major milestone has been reached in the project, with all the eight main demonstrations successfully concluded. Altogether, 79 prototype map products were delivered to the users in the demonstrations, including forest structure variables, biomass and growth variables and change detection products.