Publication Date:
2002-08-10
Description:
A recently completed research program (TREES) employing the global imaging capabilities of Earth-observing satellites provides updated information on the status of the world's humid tropical forest cover. Between 1990 and 1997, 5.8 +/- 1.4 million hectares of humid tropical forest were lost each year, with a further 2.3 +/- 0.7 million hectares of forest visibly degraded. These figures indicate that the global net rate of change in forest cover for the humid tropics is 23% lower than the generally accepted rate. This result affects the calculation of carbon fluxes in the global budget and means that the terrestrial sink is smaller than previously inferred.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Achard, Frederic -- Eva, Hugh D -- Stibig, Hans-Jurgen -- Mayaux, Philippe -- Gallego, Javier -- Richards, Timothy -- Malingreau, Jean-Paul -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2002 Aug 9;297(5583):999-1002.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Global Vegetation Monitoring Unit, Joint Research Centre, TP 440, 21020 Ispra, Italy. frederic.achard@jrc.it〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12169731" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Africa
;
Agriculture
;
Asia, Southeastern
;
Biomass
;
Carbon
;
*Conservation of Natural Resources
;
*Ecosystem
;
Humidity
;
India
;
Latin America
;
Maps as Topic
;
*Spacecraft
;
*Trees/growth & development
;
*Tropical Climate
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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