Abstract
Despite rapid advances and large-scale initiatives in forest mapping, reliable cross-border information about the status of forest resources in Central Asian countries is lacking. We produced consistent Central Asia forest cover (CAFC) maps based on a cost-efficient approach using multi-resolution satellite imagery from Landsat and MODIS during 2009–2011. The spectral-temporal metrics derived from 2009–2011 Landsat imagery (overall accuracy of 0.83) was used to predict sub-pixel forest cover on the MODIS scale for 2010. Accuracy assessment confirmed the validity of MODIS-based forest cover map with a normalized root-mean-square error of 0.63. A general paucity of forest resources in post-Soviet Central Asia was indicated, with 1.24% of the region covered by forest. In comparison to the CAFC map, a regional map derived from MODIS Vegetation Continuous Fields tended to underestimate forest cover, while the Global Forest Change product matched well. The Global Forest Resources Assessments, based on individual country reports, overestimated forest cover by 1.5 to 147 times, particularly in the more arid countries of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Multi-resolution imagery contributes to regionalized assessment of forest cover in the world’s drylands while developed CAFC maps (available at https://data.zef.de/) aim to facilitate decisions on biodiversity conservation and reforestation programs in Central Asia.
Highlights
Despite rapid advances and large-scale initiatives in forest mapping, reliable cross-border information about the status of forest resources in Central Asian countries is lacking
Mountainous forests are rich in terms of the genetic diversity of wild fruit and nut tree species and serve as carbon sinks[5,6,7,8]. Given their great ecological and environmental importance, most of the forests in Central Asia have been placed in Group I of the Soviet Union forestry system, which is designated for conservation and protection[4, 9,10,11,12]
The country report by Uzbekistan states that the last forest inventory was conducted in 1987; no national statistics are provided by Turkmenistan; Kazakhstan reports results based on a desk study; and in general, the capacities of these countries for forest monitoring is unknown[13,14,15]
Summary
Despite rapid advances and large-scale initiatives in forest mapping, reliable cross-border information about the status of forest resources in Central Asian countries is lacking. Central Asia comprises five predominantly agricultural countries of the former Soviet Union (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) that, largely covered by drylands, are home to diverse and important forest ecosystems, ranging from continuous forests in the higher-rainfall upstream areas to patchy riparian forests in the more arid downstream areas[1,2,3]. Several continental and global land cover mapping efforts based on coarse resolution satellite data (i.e., spatial resolutions greater than 250 m) provide a number of land cover products, such as the GLC200024, GlobCover[25], and MODIS Land Cover Type[26, 27] products These datasets map the distribution of forest types with acceptable accuracies on a global scale but, due to their coarse resolution, are insufficient for national forest area reporting[28]. Large discrepancies between global land cover products have been found, especially at biome borders and in sparsely vegetated environments[42, 43]
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