Harvested area did not increase abruptly—how advancements in satellite-based mapping led to erroneous conclusions

Abstract

Key message: Using satellite-based maps, Ceccherini et al. (Nature 583:72-77, 2020) report abruptly increasing harvested area estimates in several EU countries beginning in 2015. Using more than 120,000 National Forest Inventory observations to analyze the satellite-based map, we show that it is not harvested area but the map's ability to detect harvested areas that abruptly increases after 2015 in Finland and Sweden.

Keywords

Global Forest Watch; Landsat; Remote sensing; National Forest Inventory; Greenhouse Gas Inventory

Published in

Annals of Forest Science
2022, volume: 79, number: 1, article number: 2

SLU Authors

• Ellison, David

  • Department of Forest Resource Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • University of Bern

• Petersson, Hans

  • Department of Forest Resource Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Wallerman, Jörgen

  • Department of Forest Resource Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Fridman, Jonas

  • Department of Forest Resource Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Earth Observation
Forest Science

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13595-022-01120-4

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/116179