Towards the Improvement of National Forest Monitoring Approaches

International Workshop on Forest Carbon EmissionsTechnical Session 3: State of the Art Technology for Carbon Stock

Assessment and MonitoringJakarta, 3 – 5 March 2015

Arief Wijaya

Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Indonesia

Contributors: Ruandha Agung Sugardiman, Budiharto, Anna Tosiani, Judin Purwanto, Lou Verchot, Daniel Murdiyarso, Erika Romijn and Martin Herold

CIFOR Global Comparative Study on REDD+

GCS Module 3: REDD+ MRV and Carbon Emissions measurement

– Assessment of major deforestation drivers

– Setting national reference emission levels (RELs)

– Monitoring, reporting, verification (MRV) for REDD+

– Six case study countries: Brazil, Peru, Indonesia, Vietnam, Tanzania and Cameroon

Further information: www.cifor.org/gcs/

Opportunity/Challenges of National Forest Monitoring

Estimation of future carbon emissions from LULUCF sector is yet challenging for many developing countries, including in Indonesia

Opportunity: Indonesia has several spatially explicit deforestation maps/estimates

Objective of the talk: to share our approach to assess and improve the reliability of national deforestation estimate

Approaches for estimating area change in land use (activity data) – IPCC 2006

Approach 1: total area for each land use category recorded, but no information included on conversions (only net changes)

Approach 2: tracking of conversions between land use categories (only between 2 points in time)

Approach 3: spatially explicit tracking of land use conversions over time.

Materials

Land cover map of MOF (1990-2012)

Annual deforestation map of University of Maryland – both from Hansen and Margono (2000-2012)

Land cover change map of CRISP (2000-2010)

Stratified sample of land cover change map of EU Joint Research Centre (2000-2010)

Land Cover Classification SystemLanduse/cover classification of Indonesia for the years 1990, 1996, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2009, 2011, 2012 and 2013. Data source: LANDSAT satellite data (30 m resolution) (MOF, 2014)

No Classification

1 Primary Upland Forest2 Secondary Upland Forest/Logged Forest3 Primary Swamp Forest4 Secondary Swamp Forest/Logged Area5 Primary Mangrove Forest6 Secondary Mangrove Forest/Logged7 Crop Forest8 Oil Palm and Estate Crops9 Bushes/Shrubland10 Swampy Bush11 Savanna12 Upland Farming

No Classification

13 Upland Farming Mixed with Bush

14 Rice field15 Cultured Fisheries/Fishpond16 Settlement/Developed Land17 Transmigration18 Open Land19 Mining/mines20 Water Body21 Swamp22 Cloud 23 Airport/Harbor

Forest definitions

Source: Romijn, et.al, (2013)

Statistics of deforestation and forest degradation

Source: Romijn, et.al, (2013)

Forest definitions matter!

Distribution of deforestation drivers in Indonesia from 2000 to 2009 based on analysis of follow-up land cover/land use type

Land Use Types Following Forest Conversion

1990-2000

What about drivers of forest degradation?

Comparison of Deforestation Estimates – Needs for Systematic Assessment?

Semi-automatic classification and visual observation? Or different forest definitions?

Deforestation Data and Forest DefinitionsSource Resolution

MMU Forest definition

MOFOR Official (Landsat)

6.25 ha Vegetation with canopy cover of more than 30% with minimum area of 0.25 ha and tree height above 5 meter. Plantation forests (e.g. Acacia, Eucalyptus, Teak, etc.) can be considered as a forest

MOFOR FAO

6.25 ha Forest is defined by the FAO as land spanning more than 0.5 ha with more than 10% tree canopy cover and trees higher than 5 m (or having the potential to reach a height of 5 m).

CRISP (MODIS)

25 ha Not defined

Hansen (Landsat)

0.09 ha0.36 ha

Forest cover was defined as areas with canopy cover >25 and change was measured disregards to forest land use. All tree cover assemblages that met the 25% threshold, including intact forests, plantations, and forest regrowth, were defined as forests.

EU-JRC (Landsat)

5 ha More than 5 m height, forest prop. In polygon (FP)>70, canopy cover (CC)>10

CO2 Emissions from Deforestation, Peat Drainage and Peat Fires in Indonesia

Contributions of CO2 Emissions by Islands

Four Decades of Forests Persistence, clearance and logging in Borneo(1973-2010)

Source: Gaveau, et.al (2014)

76% of forest cover (1973) 46% of forest cover (2010)

http://gislab.cifor.cgiar.org/wm/borneo/

Extend period of observation

CIFOR Study(Subset of Borneo-wide Data 1973 – 2010)

Class labels Area (Mha)Intact Forest 2010 4.12Logged Forest 2010 4.04Deforestation from 1973 to 2010 3.86Non-Forest 1973 2.97Clouds 0.26Total 15.24

Courtesy: David Gaveau (CIFOR)

Detailed analysis at sub-national

Lesson learnt from CIFOR Global Comparative Study on REDD+

Countries should start as soon as possible to monitor their forestlands and forest cover change using the best available data– If we have less data the more we depend on the data

Countries should invest for collecting national datasets (i.e. time series forest cover change and local emissions factor data)

Follows international convention (such as IPCC guidelines) for estimating deforestation and forest degradation– How to differentiate between net and gross estimates

– Include natural forest recovery and forest rehabilitation efforts

Observations so far…

Recommendations for further research to support policy makers:– Systematic assessment of national land cover map – comparison of

different maps, uncertainty of visual vis-à-vis semi-automatic classification approaches

– Further analysis to address drivers of deforestation

– Extend observation period of land cover map (e.g. back to 1980)

– Include forest degradation and its associated emissions in the equation

Research and systematic observation (RSO) for forest-peat carbon

To come up with position draft to feed COP 21 Paris – relates to SDG – objectives 13-15

Which science are still required to support policy makers in mitigating climate change?