Semi-automated Approaches for Monitoring National Deforestation

International agreements of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change seek to reduce national, forest-related, greenhouse gas emissions via activities and policies on reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation, plus the role of conservation, sustainable forest management and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (REDD+). These agreements require countries to report changes in forest cover and carbon stocks via a process called measurement, reporting and verification (MRV). The International Panel on Climate Change has communicated quality principles for national MRV: transparency, completeness, consistency, comparability and accuracy. Recent advances in satellite monitoring of forests have led to greater automation, which is expected to better enable countries to regularly report and meet these principles. This paper provides an overview of general steps taken with these methods to produce large-area estimates of deforestation, similarities and differences among methods, where automation occurs, where analyst input occurs and implications for national implementation and the quality principles.