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.
Publications
10 posts
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 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.
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...
Country case studies linking the information from a national network of forest inventories and satellite data are needed to gain experience and build confidence on how forest-related greenhouse gas (GHG) monitoring and reporting can benefit from evolving space-based biomass products. In the Forest Carbon Monitoring project, we had the opportunity to investigate this topic in Peru with our user partner the Peruvian National Forest and Wildlife Service (SERFOR).
A recently published paper on semisupervised UNet deep learning for forest height mapping provides ideas and understanding for potential future development directions of the carbon monitoring platform.
During the past six months we have been busy running hundreds of tests with different Earth observation (EO) data combinations and prediction algorithms in the seven testing sites in Europe and Peru. These tests were conducted to allow selection of optimal EO data and method combinations for the demonstrations to be implemented during the second year of the project.
The findings of a recently concluded H2020 Forest Flux Innovation Action project will directly benefit our ongoing Forest Carbon Monitoring project.
Remote sensing observations from space are evolving to operational tools, possibly in complement with measurements taken on the ground. In the forestry sector, the use of satellite data is appealing because these cover large areas within a short period of time providing repeated snapshots of the landscape.
One of the scientific aspects to be further developed in the Forest Carbon Monitoring project is the integration of process-based forest ecosystem models into the forest biomass and carbon flux monitoring framework. The recent article ‘Demonstration of large area forest volume and primary production estimation approach based on Sentinel-2 imagery […]