Long Term Earth Observation Data For Forest Carbon Tracking: Australia's Experience and Global Developments

摘要

The Australian Government's National Carbon Accounting System (NCAS) was developed to report land sector greenhouse gas emissions to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol. NCAS uses a national wall-to-wall time-series of Landsat (optical) satellite data from 1972 to 2010. Independent verification has shown that the analysis can generate a stable and robust time-series analysis of forest cover change. Similar systems also using wall-to-wall time-series mid-resolution remotely sensed data analyses are now being considered for monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) for REDD+. Many of these systems are adding use of radar satellite data to the optical time-series. Improving both the coordination and accessibility of satellite and ground observations, and the transfer of technologies will be required to support a worldwide network of national MRV systems. Additional technical challenges are around the interoperability of optical and radar data, and the integration of systematic ground measurements (inventory) and the remotely sensed data.