SERVIR publishes study of deforestation in Belize

13 August 2010, 12:29pm

In collaboration with Belize's Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment in the context of SERVIR, the Water Center for the Humid Tropics of Latin America and the Caribbean (CATHALAC) and NASA recently completed a USAID-supported thirty-year study of forest cover change and deforestation in Central America's northernmost nation.

Based on analysis of Landsat satellite imagery for 1980, 1989, 1994, 2000, 2004, and 2010, the validated, national-level assessment indicates that Belize's forest cover has declined from 75.9% in 1980 to 62.7%. Average annual deforestation was estimated at 0.6%, equaling the clearing of some 24,835 acres (9,982 hectares) of forest per year.

With a short turn-around time between image acquisition and the production of the forest cover data, the study demonstrates SERVIR's capacities for rapidly converting satellite data into information. The information developed is intended to be of use as an input to processes ranging from the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation & Forest Degradation (REDD) initiative to Belize's reporting in the context of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

An electronic copy of the study can be found online at the link below.

Get a copy of the report here!

Geo: International