Journal ArticleDOI
Deforestation and Reforestation of Latin America and the Caribbean (2001–2010)
T. Mitchell Aide,Matthew L. Clark,H. Ricardo Grau,David López-Carr,Marc A. Levy,Daniel J. Redo,Martha Bonilla-Moheno,George Riner,María José Andrade-Núñez,Maria Muñiz +9 more
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TLDR
In this paper, the authors presented a wall-to-wall, annual maps of change in woody vegetation and other land-cover classes between 2001 and 2010 for each of the 16,050 municipalities in Latin American and the Caribbean region (LAC).Abstract:
Forest cover change directly affects biodiversity, the global carbon budget, and ecosystem function. Within Latin American and the Caribbean region (LAC), many studies have documented extensive deforestation, but there are also many local studies reporting forest recovery. These contrasting dynamics have been largely attributed to demographic and socio-economic change. For example, local population change due to migration can stimulate forest recovery, while the increasing global demand for food can drive agriculture expansion. However, as no analysis has simultaneously evaluated deforestation and reforestation from the municipal to continental scale, we lack a comprehensive assessment of the spatial distribution of these processes. We overcame this limitation by producing wall-to-wall, annual maps of change in woody vegetation and other land-cover classes between 2001 and 2010 for each of the 16,050 municipalities in LAC, and we used nonparametric Random Forest regression analyses to determine which environmental or population variables best explained the variation in woody vegetation change. Woody vegetation change was dominated by deforestation (541,835 km 2 ), particularly in the moist forest, dry forest, and savannas/shrublands biomes in South America. Extensive areas also recovered woody vegetation (+362,430 km 2 ), particularly in regions too dry or too steep for modern agriculture. Deforestation in moist forests tended to occur in lowland areas with low population density, but woody cover change was not related to municipality-scale population change. These results emphasize the importance of quantitating deforestation and reforestation at multiple spatial scales and linking these changes with global drivers such as the global demand for food.read more
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Journal ArticleDOI
Litterfall and nutrient dynamics shift in tropical forest restoration sites after a decade of recovery
Oscar R. Lanuza,Oscar R. Lanuza,Fernando Casanoves,Rakan A. Zahawi,Danielle Celentano,Diego Delgado,Karen D. Holl +6 more
TL;DR: Lanuza, Oscar; Casanoves, Fernando; Zahawi, Rakan A; Celentano, Danielle; Delgado, Diego; Holl, Karen D as discussed by the authors.
Journal ArticleDOI
A consilience-driven approach to land use history in relation to reconstructing forest land use legacies
Scott Mensing,Scott Mensing,Edward M. Schoolman,Edward M. Schoolman,Jordan Palli,Jordan Palli,Gianluca Piovesan,Gianluca Piovesan +7 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a consilience-driven approach for integrating socioeconomic and paleoecologic data to explore land use legacies and interpret causes of past abrupt environmental change.
Journal ArticleDOI
Lianas reduce biomass accumulation in early successional tropical forests.
Sergio Estrada-Villegas,Sergio Estrada-Villegas,Jefferson S. Hall,Michiel van Breugel,Michiel van Breugel,Michiel van Breugel,Stefan A. Schnitzer,Stefan A. Schnitzer +7 more
TL;DR: It is found that the effect of liana removal on large trees decreased with forest age, supporting the hypothesis that lianas have the strongest negative effects on trees, and thus biomass uptake and carbon storage, in very young successional forests.
Journal ArticleDOI
Impacts of the deforestation driven by agribusiness on urban population and economic activity in the Dry Chaco of Argentina
TL;DR: In this article, Sacchi, Laura Valeria, et al. present a study of the relationship between social sciences and technology at the Instituto Superior de Estudios Sociales of Argentina.
Combining SAR and optical satellite image time series for tropical forest monitoring
TL;DR: In this article, the authors presented a novel multi-sensor time series correlation and fusion (MulTiFuse) approach that was applied to fuse Landsat NDVI and ALOS PALSAR time series.
References
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Random Forests
TL;DR: Internal estimates monitor error, strength, and correlation and these are used to show the response to increasing the number of features used in the forest, and are also applicable to regression.
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Overview of the radiometric and biophysical performance of the MODIS vegetation indices
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors evaluated the performance and validity of the MODIS vegetation indices (VI), the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and enhanced vegetation index(EVI), produced at 1-km and 500-m resolutions and 16-day compositing periods.
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Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World: A New Map of Life on Earth
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Random forest: a classification and regression tool for compound classification and QSAR modeling.
Vladimir Svetnik,Andy Liaw,Christopher Tong,J. Christopher Culberson,Robert P. Sheridan,Bradley P. Feuston +5 more
TL;DR: It is the combination of relatively high prediction accuracy and its collection of desired features that makes Random Forest uniquely suited for modeling in cheminformatics.
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Dynamics of Land-Use and Land-Cover Change in Tropical Regions
TL;DR: In this article, the authors highlight the complexity of land-use/cover change and propose a framework for a more general understanding of the issue, with emphasis on tropical regions, and argue that a systematic analysis of local-scale land use change studies, conducted over a range of timescales, helps to uncover general principles that provide an explanation and prediction of new land use changes.