Monitoring of CO2 emissions in East Africa
Together with IT specialist Cloudflight, a prototype for a cloud-based forest monitoring system based on the European satellite missions Sentinel-1/-2 will be developed. This will enable to record climate-relevant CO2 emissions from deforestation and forestry use in East Africa more accurately and enable to take into account sustainable CO2 storage initiatives, such as afforestation and promotion of agroforestry systems, in carbon accounting.
Aerial photographs and satellite images
This will require reference data collected from terrestrial, space or airborne sources (ADAM remote sensing platform). New satellite data and innovative image processing methods based on time series analyses make it possible to detect small-scale forest changes, such as selective logging. The changes in forest and land use recorded by satellite are used to calculate specific CO2 emissions and regional and national carbon balances.
These data serve as a basis for national emission reports and the associated transfer payments under the UN climate protection programme REDD+ ("Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation"). The test region for prototype development is Uganda in East Africa.