Forest Carbon Tracking A New GEO Task in WP Per Erik Skr ø vseth Norwegian Space Centre

The context Supporting political requirements related to the UNFCCC negotiations Window of opportunity for political attention towards COP-15 in Copenhagen end 2009 Unique opportunity for GEO, CEOS and the forest community to demonstrate their capability to develop a consistent, long-term forest carbon monitoring system

3 NIES Model estimate: CO2 emission during 1990’s NIES

Typical forest change & routine monitoring requirements Source GOFC-GOLD

Forest Carbon Tracking Establishment of several regional reference test-sites, to demonstrate capability in support of climate policy needs Consolidation of observational requirements and associated products Coordination of observations, including securing their continuity Coordinated assessment of tools and methodologies Coordination of the production of reference datasets Improvement of access to observations, datasets, tools and expertise and associated capacity building activities.

Test-site basic requirements Donor countries identified Countries with test-sites must have some capability to support ground observations Forest management authorities in test-site host countries being involved Resources for the analysis of the data identified

Test-site characteristics Focus on tropical areas with active deforestation - afforestation Large size (to demonstrate repetitive, wide-area mapping capabilities - e.g. Borneo) Include representative scientific projects on forest change with appropriate in-situ observations Availability of some archived SAR and optical data to demonstrate changes is preferred

Identified Test-sites Amazon region in Brazil Borneo with focus on the Indonesian part Tanzania with focus on mountain forest Tasmania UN REDD (FAO) will shortly specify additional sites

ALOS PALSAR 50 m global mosaics

ALOS PALSAR L-HH L-HV TerraSAR-X X-HH X-VV Envisat ASAR C-VV C-VH Coordinated SAR observations for Forest Carbon Tracking Complementary multi-band information © JAXA/METI © Infoterra/DLR © ESA

SAR missions in operation ALOS-DaichiL-band Continuation approved ERS and ENVISATC-band Continuation approved RADARSAT-1 and-2C-band Continuation approved TerraSAR-XX-band Continuation approved COSMO-SkyMedX-band Constellation of 4 satellites

CEOS Support LSI Constellation Team together with the forest monitoring community (GOFC/GOLD) to help define and make available geo-referenced optical and SAR data LSI Constellation Team to assist in developing a strategy for continuous, systematic observations to demonstrate capability over test sites CEOS agencies through nominated POC to help together with the SAR forest monitoring community to specify SAR modes for forest monitoring and plan execution of SAR observations over test-sites

Challenges in the execution Responsibility for having geo-referenced optical data made available over the test-site being clearly identified SAR data modes and products to be identified together with SAR forest monitoring community to be done by end January 2008 Have a SAR and optical acquisition strategy ready for execution by February 2009