A Proposal for a Global Forest Information System Gilberto Câmara, INPE Lúbia Vinhas, INPE Dalton Valeriano, INPE Fred Fonseca, Penn State Univ. Clodoveu Davis, Univ Minas Gerais - Brazil

How can Brazil achieve its deforestation targets? Brazilian National Plan for Climate Change

Degradation and deforestation T2 – Partial Loss of forest structureT1 - Selective logging T3 – Collapse of forest structure Barlow and Peres (2008) T4 – Clear-cut area

T1,5 – Loss of undercover due to fire Progressive degradation T1 – Selective logging T2 – Partial loss of forest structureT3 – Complete loss of forest structure

Severely degraded forest Pasture Marcelândia (MT, Brazil) – Jan-2008 (4.000 ha) Pasture inside a forest area Progressive degradation: the final steps

~230 scenes Landsat/year Yearly detailed estimates of clear-cut areas PRODES: Clear-cut deforestation mapping

15-day alerts of newly deforested large areas DETER: Real-time deforestation monitoring

DEGRAD: Forest degradation Forest degradation in LANDSAT image (June 2008)

TerraAmazon – open source software for large-scale land change monitoring Spatial database (PostgreSQL with vectors and images) data: 3 million polygons, 300 GB images, 250 GB vector data

Alerta DETER nov-2007 Landsat/TM (August 2007) MODIS (November 2007) How hard is to use MODIS? Detection of deforestation and degradation in MODIS requires much expertise (low-resolution artifacts)

Clearing area for pasture Checking DETER´s data (February 2008) Validation is essential for credibility!

How hard is to use ALOS? ALOS L-HH image (July 2007) ALOS L-HH image (November 2007) LANDSAT TM image (June 2007) The real thing (Marcelandia, Brazil) Backscatter is seasonally variable (chance of false positives and false negatives)

In search of the pure pixels (the Holy Grail of remote sensing) Methods: Mixture Model Original LANDSAT TM image Soil component Shade component Vegetation component

Soil component Segmented soil component Methods: Segmentation

Deforestation Deforestation Forest Previous deforestation Methods: Classification

A lot of work goes into editing and auditing! Methods: Editing and auditing

Results: Wall-to-wall maps Deforestation is spatially autocorrelated (wall-to-wall maps are required)

INPE´s Remote Sensing Satellites: CBERS-5 CBERS-4 Amazônia-1 CBERS Amazônia-2 CBERS CBERS-SAR Amazônia CBERS: China Brazil Earth Resources Satellite Amazônia-1: 100% Brazilian 2020

The Anti-Uncle Scrooge Principle A pixel unused is a penny wasted LANDSAT data archive (USGS) A penny saved is a penny earned Value comes from use!

What is a public good? Non-rival...[goods] which all enjoy in common in the sense that each individual's consumption of such a good leads to no subtractions from any other individual's consumption of that good... (Samuelson) Non-excludable it is impossible to exclude any individuals from consuming the good

Almost all spatial data are public goods

Global Forest Information System The Digital Earth vision … images, maps, research results, laws, policies, and citizen-provided information can be indexed, searched, discovered and used by any interested parties...

A Global Forest Information System LANDSAT TM (30 m) CBERS HRC (2,5 m) Navigate, describe, understand: image navigation and processing, production and dissemination of information, knowledge-building using semantics

“A few satellites can cover the entire globe, but there needs to be a system in place to ensure their images are readily available to everyone who needs them. Brazil has set an important precedent by making its Earth-observation data available, and the rest of the world should follow suit.”

Data for the world´s tropical areas Global satellite data in 5 meter+ will be free Concerted action needed with benefits to all involved Cuiabá Boa Vista Chetumal Maspalomas Aswan Jo´burg Nairobi(?) Accra(?) Urumchi Miyun Ghuangzhou Darwin)

Optical Satellites for Forestry Resolution (metres) Revisit (days) WFI CBERS-2 CCD CBERS-2/3/4 AWFI CBERS-3/4 MUX CBERS-3/ AWFI CBERS-5/6 MUX CBERS-5/6 Mapping Detection Description 5 AWFI Amaz-1/2 TM LANDSAT HRG SPOT 500 MODIS SPOT PAN HRC CBERS-2B CBERS SAR-2 CBERS SAR-1 SENTINEL-2 LISS-4 (IRS-P6) LISS-3 IRS-P6/7 AWIFS (IRS-P6/7)

Multiple perspectives Type 1: Capable national agencies Type 2: Other National agencies Type 3: International organizations Type 4: Scientists and experts Type 5: Private companies (markets and services) Type 6: NGOs and common citizens.

Supporting Type 1 users with high-resolution CBERS-HRC image (2,5 meters) Deforestation Degradation Validation sites (INPE, Feb 2008) High-resolution images support validation

Supporting Type 2 users with web tools Angola national report? Angola CBERS CCD (20 m) 24-June-08 GoogleEarth (resolution? date? ) Web-based tools for mapping, validation and assessment of deforestation

Knowledge base A What is deforestation? Deforestation! Deforestation? Knowledge base B Supporting Type 4 users with semantics Overcoming the semantical debate

Supporting Type 6 users: Society is watching!

Open Globes Global Forest Information System OpenForestMap WikiForest Scientists, Citizens, Markets National, int´l agencies Angola Congo DR

Development as Freedom (Amartya Sen) The goal of development is the promotion and expansion of valuable capabilities. Capability is the freedom to achieve valuable beings and doings.