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
Biomass of timber species in Central American secondary forests: Towards climate change mitigation through sustainable timber harvesting
Maïri Souza Oliveira,Bryan Finegan,Fernando Casanoves,Diego Delgado,Norvin Sepúlveda,Adriana Aguilar Porras,María Alejandra Chamorro,Jean Pierre Morales Aymerich,Marie Ange Ngo Bieng,Marie Ange Ngo Bieng +9 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyzed data from individuals ≥20 cm dbh, estimating biomass from field measurements of stem diameters, and wood density and tree height estimates from the BIOMASS package.
Journal ArticleDOI
Land use and land cover change in a tropical mountain landscape of northern Ecuador: Altitudinal patterns and driving forces
TL;DR: In this article , the authors analyzed land use land cover (LULC) dynamics using Markov chain probabilities by elevation and geographic settings and then integrated them with a variety of publicly available geospatial and temporal data into a Generalized Additive Model (GAM) to evaluate factors driving such landscape dynamics in a sensitive region of the northern Ecuadorian Andes.
Book ChapterDOI
Remote Sensing and Socioeconomic Data Integration: Lessons from the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center
Journal ArticleDOI
Local variability in the timing and intensity of tropical dry forest deciduousness is explained by differences in forest stand age
TL;DR: Tropical Dry Forest deciduousness is a behavioral response to climate conditions that determines ecosystem-level carbon uptake, energy flux, and habitat conditions as discussed by the authors, and it is regulated by factors relat...
Journal ArticleDOI
Analysing Latin American and Caribbean forest vulnerability from socio-economic factors
TL;DR: The Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) forest cover reduced by 9% from 1990 to 2015, affecting biodiversity, climate change mitigation and ecosystem service functionality as discussed by the authors. But these losses are caused by a...
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
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Vladimir Svetnik,Andy Liaw,Christopher Tong,J. Christopher Culberson,Robert P. Sheridan,Bradley P. Feuston +5 more
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Journal ArticleDOI
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.