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Article: Approaches of Satellite Remote Sensing for the Assessment of Above-Ground Biomass across Tropical Forests: Pan-tropical to National Scales

TitleApproaches of Satellite Remote Sensing for the Assessment of Above-Ground Biomass across Tropical Forests: Pan-tropical to National Scales
Authors
Keywordsabove-ground biomass
remote sensing
tropical forest
pan-tropics
carbon stock
Issue Date2020
PublisherMDPI AG. The Journal's web site is located at http://www.mdpi.com/journal/remotesensing/
Citation
Remote Sensing, 2020, v. 12, p. article no. 3351 How to Cite?
AbstractTropical forests are acknowledged for providing important ecosystem services and are renowned as “the lungs of the planet Earth” due to their role in the exchange of gasses—particularly inhaling CO2 and breathing out O2—within the atmosphere. Overall, the forests provide 50% of the total plant biomass of the Earth, which accounts for 450–650 PgC globally. Understanding and accurate estimates of tropical forest biomass stocks are imperative in ascertaining the contribution of the tropical forests in global carbon dynamics. This article provides a review of remote-sensing-based approaches for the assessment of above-ground biomass (AGB) across the tropical forests (global to national scales), summarizes the current estimate of pan-tropical AGB, and discusses major advancements in remote-sensing-based approaches for AGB mapping. The review is based on the journal papers, books and internet resources during the 1980s to 2020. Over the past 10 years, a myriad of research has been carried out to develop methods of estimating AGB by integrating different remote sensing datasets at varying spatial scales. Relationships of biomass with canopy height and other structural attributes have developed a new paradigm of pan-tropical or global AGB estimation from space-borne satellite remote sensing. Uncertainties in mapping tropical forest cover and/or forest cover change are related to spatial resolution; definition adapted for ‘forest’ classification; the frequency of available images; cloud covers; time steps used to map forest cover change and post-deforestation land cover land use (LCLU)-type mapping. The integration of products derived from recent Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) satellite missions with conventional optical satellite images has strong potential to overcome most of these uncertainties for recent or future biomass estimates. However, it will remain a challenging task to map reference biomass stock in the 1980s and 1990s and consequently to accurately quantify the loss or gain in forest cover over the periods. Aside from these limitations, the estimation of biomass and carbon balance can be enhanced by taking account of post-deforestation forest recovery and LCLU type; land-use history; diversity of forest being recovered; variations in physical attributes of plants (e.g., tree height; diameter; and canopy spread); environmental constraints; abundance and mortalities of trees; and the age of secondary forests. New methods should consider peak carbon sink time while developing carbon sequestration models for intact or old-growth tropical forests as well as the carbon sequestration capacity of recovering forest with varying levels of floristic diversity.
Persistent Identifierhttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/294840
ISSN
2023 Impact Factor: 4.2
2023 SCImago Journal Rankings: 1.091
ISI Accession Number ID

 

DC FieldValueLanguage
dc.contributor.authorAbbas, S-
dc.contributor.authorWong, MS-
dc.contributor.authorWu, J-
dc.contributor.authorShahzd, N-
dc.contributor.authorMuhmmad Irteza, S-
dc.date.accessioned2020-12-21T11:49:18Z-
dc.date.available2020-12-21T11:49:18Z-
dc.date.issued2020-
dc.identifier.citationRemote Sensing, 2020, v. 12, p. article no. 3351-
dc.identifier.issn2072-4292-
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/294840-
dc.description.abstractTropical forests are acknowledged for providing important ecosystem services and are renowned as “the lungs of the planet Earth” due to their role in the exchange of gasses—particularly inhaling CO2 and breathing out O2—within the atmosphere. Overall, the forests provide 50% of the total plant biomass of the Earth, which accounts for 450–650 PgC globally. Understanding and accurate estimates of tropical forest biomass stocks are imperative in ascertaining the contribution of the tropical forests in global carbon dynamics. This article provides a review of remote-sensing-based approaches for the assessment of above-ground biomass (AGB) across the tropical forests (global to national scales), summarizes the current estimate of pan-tropical AGB, and discusses major advancements in remote-sensing-based approaches for AGB mapping. The review is based on the journal papers, books and internet resources during the 1980s to 2020. Over the past 10 years, a myriad of research has been carried out to develop methods of estimating AGB by integrating different remote sensing datasets at varying spatial scales. Relationships of biomass with canopy height and other structural attributes have developed a new paradigm of pan-tropical or global AGB estimation from space-borne satellite remote sensing. Uncertainties in mapping tropical forest cover and/or forest cover change are related to spatial resolution; definition adapted for ‘forest’ classification; the frequency of available images; cloud covers; time steps used to map forest cover change and post-deforestation land cover land use (LCLU)-type mapping. The integration of products derived from recent Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) satellite missions with conventional optical satellite images has strong potential to overcome most of these uncertainties for recent or future biomass estimates. However, it will remain a challenging task to map reference biomass stock in the 1980s and 1990s and consequently to accurately quantify the loss or gain in forest cover over the periods. Aside from these limitations, the estimation of biomass and carbon balance can be enhanced by taking account of post-deforestation forest recovery and LCLU type; land-use history; diversity of forest being recovered; variations in physical attributes of plants (e.g., tree height; diameter; and canopy spread); environmental constraints; abundance and mortalities of trees; and the age of secondary forests. New methods should consider peak carbon sink time while developing carbon sequestration models for intact or old-growth tropical forests as well as the carbon sequestration capacity of recovering forest with varying levels of floristic diversity.-
dc.languageeng-
dc.publisherMDPI AG. The Journal's web site is located at http://www.mdpi.com/journal/remotesensing/-
dc.relation.ispartofRemote Sensing-
dc.rightsThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.-
dc.subjectabove-ground biomass-
dc.subjectremote sensing-
dc.subjecttropical forest-
dc.subjectpan-tropics-
dc.subjectcarbon stock-
dc.titleApproaches of Satellite Remote Sensing for the Assessment of Above-Ground Biomass across Tropical Forests: Pan-tropical to National Scales-
dc.typeArticle-
dc.identifier.emailWu, J: jinwu@hku.hk-
dc.identifier.authorityWu, J=rp02509-
dc.description.naturepublished_or_final_version-
dc.identifier.doi10.3390/rs12203351-
dc.identifier.scopuseid_2-s2.0-85092764644-
dc.identifier.hkuros320736-
dc.identifier.volume12-
dc.identifier.spagearticle no. 3351-
dc.identifier.epagearticle no. 3351-
dc.identifier.isiWOS:000585605300001-
dc.publisher.placeSwitzerland-

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