Benchmark maps of 33 years of secondary forest age for Brazil

Published in Scientific Data volume 7, Article number: 269
Authors

Celso H. L. Silva Junior,  Viola H. A. Heinrich,  Ana T. G. Freire,  Igor S. Broggio,  Thais M. Rosan,  Juan Doblas,  Liana O. Anderson,  Guillaume X. Rousseau,  Yosio E. Shimabukuro,  Carlos A. Silva,  Joanna I. House &  Luiz E. O. C. Aragão 
Publication year 2020
DOI https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-020-00600-4
Affiliations
  • Tropical Ecosystems and Environmental Sciences lab - TREES, São José dos Campos, Brazil. celsohlsj@gmail.com.
  • Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE), São José dos Campos, Brazil. celsohlsj@gmail.com.
  • University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom.
  • Programa de Pós-graduação em Biodiversidade e Conservação, Universidade Federal do Maranhão (UFMA), São Luís, Brazil.
  • Tropical Ecosystems and Environmental Sciences lab - TREES, São José dos Campos, Brazil.
  • Laboratório de Ciências Ambientais, Centro de Biociências e Biotecnologia, Universidade Estadual do Norte Fluminense Darcy Ribeiro (UENF), Campos dos Goytacazes, Brazil.
  • University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.
  • Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE), São José dos Campos, Brazil.
  • Centro Nacional de Monitoramento e Alertas de Desastres Naturais (Cemaden), São José dos Campos, Brazil.
  • Programa de Pós-graduação em Agroecologia, Universidade Estadual do Maranhão (UEMA), São Luís, Brazil.
  • University of Maryland, College Park, United States of America.
  • University of Florida, Gainesville, United States of America.
IAI Program
  • Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior &ndash Brasil (CAPES) &ndash Finance Code 001.
  • NERC GW4&thinsp+&thinspDoctoral Training Partnership studentship from the Natural Environment Research Council (NE/L002434/1) and is thankful for the support and additional funding from CASE partner, BEIS, UK.
  • the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI), process: SGP-HW 016
  • FAPESP process 2016/02018-2. L.E.O.C.A. thanks CNPq processes 305054/2016-3 and 442371/2019-5 and FAPESP process 2018/15001-6 (ARBOLES Project).
IAI Project SGP-HW 016
Keywords
Forest
Carbon
Brazil
Secondary Forest
Age
Maps
Restoration
PDFBenchmark maps of 33 years of secondary forest age for Brazil.pdf

Abstract

The restoration and reforestation of 12 million hectares of forests by 2030 are amongst the leading mitigation strategies for reducing carbon emissions within the Brazilian Nationally Determined Contribution targets assumed under the Paris Agreement. Understanding the dynamics of forest cover, which steeply decreased between 1985 and 2018 throughout Brazil, is essential for estimating the global carbon balance and quantifying the provision of ecosystem services. To know the long-term increment, extent, and age of secondary forests is crucial however, these variables are yet poorly quantified. Here we developed a 30-m spatial resolution dataset of the annual increment, extent, and age of secondary forests for Brazil over the 1986-2018 period. Land-use and land-cover maps from MapBiomas Project (Collection 4.1) were used as input data for our algorithm, implemented in the Google Earth Engine platform. This dataset provides critical spatially explicit information for supporting carbon emissions reduction, biodiversity, and restoration policies, enabling environmental science applications, territorial planning, and subsidizing environmental law enforcement.