Pan Tropical forest strata

The purpose for stratifying forest cover was to delineate regions (strata) associated with different carbon stock reference values in order to estimate aboveground carbon loss from tropical forest disturbance using sample-based forest loss area estimate based on forest cover loss map by Hansen et al. (2013). However, consistently characterized pan-tropical forest type maps are not available at the 30-m spatial resolution corresponding to the forest loss data. Characterizing forest cover based on complex multi-parameter definitions (e.g. "primary forests", "secondary forests", "woodlands") as we have performed at a national scale (Potapov et al 2012) is not easily achieved at a biome scale. Instead, we defined tropical forest strata using remotely sensed-derived structural characteristics of tree canopy (year 2000 percent tree canopy cover (Hansen et al 2013)), tree height (current study) and forest intactness (Potapov et al 2008). Stratification thresholds were developed to minimize within-strata AGC variance using a statistical regression tree approach with point-based GLAS carbon estimates (Baccini et al 2012) for the period 2003 - 2008 as the dependent variable.

For questions and additional data requests please contact Alexandra Tyukavina atyukav@umd.edu

Please, use the following credit when the provided data are cited: Tyukavina, A., Baccini, A., Hansen, M. C., Potapov, P. V., Stehman, S. V., Houghton, R. A., Krylov, A.M., Turubanova S., Goetz, S. J. (2015) Aboveground carbon loss in natural and managed tropical forests from 2000 to 2012. Environmental Research Letters, 10(7), 074002.

Numbers in the legend refer to forest strata: 1 - low cover; 2 - medium cover short; 3 - medium cover tall; 4 - dense cover short; 5 - dense cover short intact; 6 - dense cover tall; 7 - dense cover tall intact.
 

Links to download 30-m forest strata:

Africa AFR_strata.zip [1.87 Gb]
Latin America SAM_strata.zip [2.59 Gb]
Southeast Asia SEA_strata.zip [2.12 Gb]

Visualize Data on Map

 

References

  1. Baccini A. et al. 2012 Estimated carbon dioxide emissions from tropical deforestation improved by carbon-density maps Nature Climate Change 2 182-5
  2. Hansen M.C. et al. 2013 High-resolution global maps of 21-st century forest cover change Science 342 850-3
  3. Potapov P.V. et al. 2008 Mapping the world's Intact Forest Landscapes by remote sensing. Ecology and Society 13 51
  4. Potapov P.V. et al. 2012 Quantifying forest cover loss in Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2000-2010, with Landsat ETM+ data Remote Sensing of Environment 122 106-16