
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
How to find a Hurricane (again)

Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Caribbean GIS Conference - Updated Call for Presentations

Friday, August 06, 2010
Remote Sensing of the Forests of Belize

The abovementioned technical paper provides pretty detailed instructions on how to go about doing such a study, and the source and the output data as well as the spectral signatures generated and used in this study are also available. Theoretically, if the forests of other parts of the Caribbean reflect light in similar ways to Belize's forests, the self-same spectral signatures can be used for mapping elsewhere in the Caribbean, for instance.
CATHALAC intends to continue collaboration with Belize's Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment (specifically specialists at the Land Information Centre and the Forest Department), to catalyze regular, sustained space-based monitoring of Belize's forests. CATHALAC also hopes that the technical paper stimulates the interest of other folks in the Caribbean to pick up something like this - they show that the barriers to conducting such studies are small. Thanks E. Cherrington.
Update: (Thanks K. Lance) Based on this analysis of Landsat satellite imagery for 1980, 1989, 1994, 2000, 2004, and 2010, the validated, national-level assessment indicates that Belize's forest cover has declined from 75.9% in 1980 to 62.7%. Average annual deforestation was estimated at 0.6%, equaling the clearing of some 24,835 acres (9,982 hectares) of forest per year.
Labels:
Belize,
Forest,
Land Use Change,
Remote Sensing
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