1. NCEO University of Sheffield
Earth Observation Science to
Understand a Changing Planet
Joao Carreiras
NCEO University of Sheffield
NCEO is a distributed Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) centre of over 80 scientists from UK universities and research organisations
NCEO provides the UK’s NERC with national capability in Earth observation science and hosts the UK Joint GEO/CEOS Office
GFOI-related activities hosted by the Terrestrial Carbon and Vegetation unit and within the Official Development Assistance (ODA) programme

2. Earth Observation Science to Understand a Changing Planet
Mapping the age of tropical secondary forests in Brazil with Landsat TM and ALOS PALSAR
Radar-based discrimination of burnt areas in tropical regions: Sentinel-1 and the 2015 fires in Indonesia
Carreiras et al., RSE 2017
Carreiras et al., in preparation

3. Regional Forest Aboveground Biomass in Mexico
Earth Observation Science to
Understand a Changing Planet
Regional Forest Aboveground Biomass in Mexico
Improved quantitative biomass maps at regional and global scale
Provision of associated uncertainty maps
Validation including major user organisations and establishing common practices and standards
Contribution of new scientific results with respect to biomass stock and change estimation
Rodriguez-Veiga et al., in preparation

4. Official Development Assistance (ODA) Research
Earth Observation Science to
Understand a Changing Planet
Official Development Assistance (ODA) Research
EO research and capacity building activities to map forest carbon stocks and deforestation processes in Kenya ( )
Investigate the suitability of new research using freely available satellite data and models to assess forest carbon pools and fluxes in a developing country (Kenya)
Promote the use of EO data, develop methods and assess results in partnership with national stakeholders
Relevance to GFOI
Ongoing assessing of country needs to define priorities: several meetings held with Kenya Forest Service to collect user requirements
Research based on open and free access EO data, with all produced datasets (maps) to be made publicly available
Actions/activities aligned with GFOI R&D priorities
Capacity building resources: demonstration Google Earth Engine cloud computing & EO time-series analysis using R

5. Kenya aboveground biomass map (2015)
Earth Observation Science to
Understand a Changing Planet
Initial results
Annual maps of tree cover classes
( )
Kenya aboveground biomass map (2015)
2014
2017
Carbon sequestration potential in forests
Left: forest biomass from Pedro
Middle: Potential forest biomass reconstructed from Pedro’s biomass map constructed with SLEEK info on forest cover. It was created by extrapolation of the AGB = f(climate) relationship trained in forested regions. The difference from the previous map is that we only use places where AGB > 49 Mg ha-1 for training purpose.
Right: the difference between potential and current biomass, i.e. the local carbon-sequestration potential of reforestation. Places where potential is 0 are places that were assumed to be pristine based on their current biomass
Carbon sequestration potential in forests

6. Thank you! https://www.nceo.ac.uk/ Earth Observation Science to
Understand a Changing Planet
Thank you!