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Research article2017Peer reviewedOpen access

The extent of forest in dryland biomes

Bastin, Jean-Francois; Berrahmouni, Nora; Grainger, Alan; Maniatis, Danae; Mollicone, Danilo; Moore, Rebecca; Patriarca, Chiara; Picard, Nicolas; Sparrow, Ben; Abraham, Elena Maria; Aloui, Kamel; Atesoglu, Ayhan; Attore, Fabio; Bassullu, Caglar; Bey, Adia; Garzuglia, Monica; Garca-Montero, Luis G.; Groot, Nikee; Guerin, Greg; Laestadius, Lars;
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Abstract

Dryland biomes cover two-fifths of Earth's land surface, but their forest area is poorly known. Here, we report an estimate of global forest extent in dryland biomes, based on analyzing more than 210,000 0.5-hectare sample plots through a photo-interpretation approach using large databases of satellite imagery at (i) very high spatial resolution and (ii) very high temporal resolution, which are available through the Google Earth platform. We show that in 2015, 1327 million hectares of drylands had more than 10% tree-cover, and 1079 million hectares comprised forest. Our estimate is 40 to 47% higher than previous estimates, corresponding to 467 million hectares of forest that have never been reported before. This increases current estimates of global forest cover by at least 9%.

Published in

Science
2017, Volume: 356, number: 6338, pages: 635-+
Publisher: AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE

    Sustainable Development Goals

    Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss

    UKÄ Subject classification

    Forest Science

    Publication identifier

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aam6527

    Permanent link to this page (URI)

    https://res.slu.se/id/publ/82797