Mapping the world’s biomass to better tackle deforestation | CIFOR Forests News Blog
▻http://blog.cifor.org/41009/mapping-the-worlds-biomass-to-better-tackle-deforestation?fnl=en
“The existing maps use satellite images to cover large areas, but the satellite images don’t actually see how much biomass there is,” said Valerio Avitabile, a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Geo-Information at Wageningen University. Avitabile is currently working on a global comparative study on REDD+ being conducted by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).
“They only see if there are forests and the characteristics of the forests. Biomass is indirectly related to the satellite images, so it requires a model to relate the ground data to the satellite data,” he said. “The satellites only see what is on top of the canopy, so that is why different models exist to estimate biomass from the satellite images.”