Estimating recent forest losses in Bosnia and Herzegovina by using the Copernicus and Corine land cover databases

The analysis of data from the first two decades of the 21st century shows that the area under forests in Bosnia and Herzegovina is gradually decreasing. In order to gain a detailed insight into this process, the paper will analyse the forest databases of the European satellite monitoring program Copernicus. This program, among other things, monitors the condition of forests in 39 European countries by using the High Resolution Layer (HRL). The HRL Forests database consists of 3 types of (status) products, and additional change products. The status products are available for the reference years 2012, 2015, and 2018. The status layers provide information on the Dominant Leaf Type and the Tree Cover Density at pixel level for the reference year 2018 in 10 m resolution. The Forest Type layer largely follows the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) forest definition. Also, the paper will use the data on forests from the CORINE Land Cover project for 2000, 2006, 2012 and 2018. The time-series includes a land change layer, highlighting changes in land cover and land use. The CLC Changes database will be analysed separately for three periods: 2000-2006, 2006-2012 and 2012-2018, due to more accurate data on forest losses. The results of the research show that forests in Bosnia and Herzegovina were reduced by 2.95%, in the period 2012-2018, where 2.55% of them were coniferous. Forests are primarily endangered by the process of conversion to transitional forest / shrub and fires.

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Land Cover-Specific Local Incidence Angle Correction: A Method for Time-Series Analysis of Forest Ecosystems

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs13091743 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (9) ◽

pp. 1743

Author(s):

Daniel Paluba ◽

Josef Laštovička ◽

Antonios Mouratidis ◽

Přemysl Štych

Keyword(s):

Time Series ◽

Land Cover ◽

Forest Type ◽

Incidence Angle ◽

Correction Method ◽

Google Earth ◽

Forest Change ◽

Corine Land Cover ◽

Angle Correction ◽

Wide Range

This study deals with a local incidence angle correction method, i.e., the land cover-specific local incidence angle correction (LC-SLIAC), based on the linear relationship between the backscatter values and the local incidence angle (LIA) for a given land cover type in the monitored area. Using the combination of CORINE Land Cover and Hansen et al.’s Global Forest Change databases, a wide range of different LIAs for a specific forest type can be generated for each scene. The algorithm was developed and tested in the cloud-based platform Google Earth Engine (GEE) using Sentinel-1 open access data, Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) digital elevation model, and CORINE Land Cover and Hansen et al.’s Global Forest Change databases. The developed method was created primarily for time-series analyses of forests in mountainous areas. LC-SLIAC was tested in 16 study areas over several protected areas in Central Europe. The results after correction by LC-SLIAC showed a reduction of variance and range of backscatter values. Statistically significant reduction in variance (of more than 40%) was achieved in areas with LIA range >50° and LIA interquartile range (IQR) >12°, while in areas with low LIA range and LIA IQR, the decrease in variance was very low and statistically not significant. Six case studies with different LIA ranges were further analyzed in pre- and post-correction time series. Time-series after the correction showed a reduced fluctuation of backscatter values caused by different LIAs in each acquisition path. This reduction was statistically significant (with up to 95% reduction of variance) in areas with a difference in LIA greater than or equal to 27°. LC-SLIAC is freely available on GitHub and GEE, making the method accessible to the wide remote sensing community.

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The EU in other International Organizations

10.1093/oso/9780198869481.003.0005 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 128-176

Author(s):

Jan Wouters ◽

Frank Hoffmeister ◽

Geert De Baere ◽

Thomas Ramopoulos

Keyword(s):

International Organizations ◽

World Trade ◽

European Court Of Justice ◽

Full Member ◽

Food And Agriculture ◽

Food And Agriculture Organization ◽

European Court ◽

The Status ◽

International Body ◽

The Eu

This chapter presents the rules under EU law and international law that enable the EU to participate in the work of other international organizations. It explains the process of the EU becoming and acting as a full member in an international body composed of States, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) or the World Trade Organization (WTO). When full membership is legally not possible, the EU is often granted the status of an observer. In this regard, the chapter presents pertinent examples from the UN and its specialized organizations. It puts particular emphasis on recent European Court of Justice (ECJ) case law, including Germany v Council (‘OTIF I’), where the Court underlined that the presentation of common EU positions is necessary in international organizations, even if the EU is not a full member thereof and has not legislated in the entire field of action covered by that organization.

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Tree Cover Estimation in Global Drylands from Space Using Deep Learning

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs12030343 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (3) ◽

pp. 343 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Emilio Guirado ◽

Domingo Alcaraz-Segura ◽

Javier Cabello ◽

Sergio Puertas-Ruíz ◽

Francisco Herrera ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Forest Cover ◽

Global Scale ◽

Classification Model ◽

Tree Cover ◽

System Modelling ◽

Earth System ◽

Visual Interpretation ◽

Food And Agriculture ◽

Food And Agriculture Organization ◽

The Cost

Accurate tree cover mapping is of paramount importance in many fields, from biodiversity conservation to carbon stock estimation, ecohydrology, erosion control, or Earth system modelling. Despite this importance, there is still uncertainty about global forest cover, particularly in drylands. Recently, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) conducted a costly global assessment of dryland forest cover through the visual interpretation of orthoimages using the Collect Earth software, involving hundreds of operators from around the world. Our study proposes a new automatic method for estimating tree cover using artificial intelligence and free orthoimages. Our results show that our tree cover classification model, based on convolutional neural networks (CNN), is 23% more accurate than the manual visual interpretation used by FAO, reaching up to 79% overall accuracy. The smallest differences between the two methods occurred in the driest regions, but disagreement increased with the percentage of tree cover. The application of CNNs could be used to improve and reduce the cost of tree cover maps from the local to the global scale, with broad implications for research and management.

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Arabian ungulates—their status and future protection

Oryx ◽

10.1017/s0030605300026338 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 20 (2) ◽

pp. 100-103 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Khushal Habibi

Keyword(s):

Saudi Arabia ◽

United Nations ◽

Endemic Species ◽

Habitat Degradation ◽

Northern Province ◽

Population Declines ◽

Food And Agriculture ◽

Food And Agriculture Organization ◽

The Status ◽

Main Factors

Ungulate populations are at a low ebb in Saudi Arabia. Indiscriminate hunting and habitat degradation are the main factors causing population declines in three of the five endemic species. The author collected information on the status of these animals while working as a wildlife ecologist for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in the northern province of Al-Jouf.

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Genetic variability of microsatellites in autochthonous Podolian cattle breeds in Croatia

Acta Veterinaria Brno ◽

10.2754/avb201382020135 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 82 (2) ◽

pp. 135-140 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Tomislav Keros ◽

Lorena Jemeršić ◽

Jelena Prpić ◽

Miroslav Benić ◽

Besi Roić ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Genetic Variability ◽

Cattle Breed ◽

Mean Value ◽

Breeding Programs ◽

Genetic Characteristics ◽

Blood Samples ◽

Food And Agriculture ◽

Food And Agriculture Organization ◽

The Status ◽

Almost All

The aim of the study was to analyse the status of the genetic structure of two autochthonous Croatian Podolian breeds (Istrian cattle and Slavonian Syrmian Podolians). The study comprised 20 randomly selected blood samples of each cattle breed. The genotyping was performed on 11 microsatellites (TGLA227, BM2113, TGLA53, ETH10, SPS115, TGLA126, TGLA122, INRA23, ETH3, ETH225, BM1824) as recommended by International Society of Animal Genetics and Food and Agriculture Organization. The procedure enabled the identification of 423 (96.14%) genotypes, indicating the validity of DNA analyses in blood samples and adequacy of the selected microsatellite markers. Likewise, there was the total number of 203 alleles with minimal differences among the studied groups. The differences (p > 0.05) were observed within the genotypes of the studied groups regarding the microsatellite loci. The distribution of the genetic relationship was presented by Wright F coefficients. The FIS had negative values for the TGLA 227 locus in both studied groups and for ETH3, ETH225 and BM1834 loci in the Slavonian Syrmian Podolians. This obtained data with relative high values of heterozygosity also shows a genetical influence of other breeds. Almost all FIT values were appropriate (0.31905) as a result of excessive selection effects. The mean value of FST (0.07336) indicates that the average degree of genetic variability of the studied breeds was not significantly different despite certain differences in individual loci. The observed specific polymorphism of loci shows that the Istrian cattle and the Slavonian Syrmian Podolians have similar genetic characteristics, but also that there are certain differences between the breeds and even inter-breed differences. The findings indicate a relationship between the breeds and their suitable purity for interbreeding but they also indicate certain danger to certain parts of genome within the studied species. The results can be applied in the protection and breeding programs for the preservation of autochtonous Croatian Podolian breeds.

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The Status of Overfishing

Overfishing ◽

10.1093/wentk/9780199798131.003.0016 ◽

2012 ◽

Author(s):

Ray Hilborn ◽

Ulrike Hilborn

Keyword(s):

United Nations ◽

Commercial Fish ◽

Fish Stocks ◽

Food And Agriculture ◽

Food And Agriculture Organization ◽

The Status ◽

Commercially Important ◽

The United Nations ◽

Important Fish

Are the world’s stocks overfished? The most authoritative assessment of the status of commercial fish stocks comes from FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Every two years FAO publishes a report that summarizes the status of commercially important fish stocks....

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Simple Method of Forest Type Inventory by Joining Low Resolution Remote Sensing of Vegetation Indices with Spatial Information from the Corine Land Cover Database

ISRN Forestry ◽

10.1155/2013/529193 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 2013 ◽

pp. 1-8

Author(s):

Jarosław J. Zawadzki ◽

Karol Przeździecki ◽

Karol Szymankiewicz ◽

Wojciech Marczewski

Keyword(s):

Remote Sensing ◽

Land Cover ◽

Seasonal Changes ◽

Forest Type ◽

Vegetation Indices ◽

Temperate Climate ◽

Low Resolution ◽

Simple Method ◽

Corine Land Cover ◽

Statistical Measures

The paper presents a simple, inexpensive, and effective method allowing for frequent classification of the forest type coniferous, deciduous, and mixed using medium and low resolution remote sensing images. The proposed method is based on the set of vegetation indices such as NDVI, LAI, FAPAR, and LAIxCab calculated from MODIS and MERIS satellite data. The method uses seasonal changes of the above-mentioned vegetation indices within annual cycle. The main idea was to collect and carefully analyse seasonal changes in vegetation indices in a given ecosystem type proven by a Corine Land Cover, 2006 database, and to compare them afterwards with those of a particular forest under study. Each type of a forest ecosystem has its own specific dynamics of development, thus enabling recognition of the type by comparing temporal changes of the proposed measures based on vegetation indices. Temporal measures of changes were created for selected reference stands by the ratios of particular indices determined in July and April, which are the middle and the beginning of a vegetation season in Poland, respectively. The analysed vegetation indices were additionally provided with chosen statistical measures. The statistical analyses were carried out for Poland’s main national parks which represent the natural stands of temperate climate.

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Fire hazard modulation by long-term dynamics in land cover and dominant forest type in eastern and central Europe

Biogeosciences ◽

10.5194/bg-17-1213-2020 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 17 (5) ◽

pp. 1213-1230 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Angelica Feurdean ◽

Boris Vannière ◽

Walter Finsinger ◽

Dan Warren ◽

Simon C. Connor ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Land Cover ◽

Biomass Burning ◽

Forest Type ◽

Fire Hazard ◽

Fire Regimes ◽

Early Holocene ◽

Tree Cover ◽

The Past

Abstract. Wildfire occurrence is influenced by climate, vegetation and human activities. A key challenge for understanding the risk of fires is quantifying the mediating effect of vegetation on fire regimes. Here, we explore the relative importance of Holocene land cover, land use, dominant functional forest type, and climate dynamics on biomass burning in temperate and boreo-nemoral regions of central and eastern Europe over the past 12 kyr. We used an extensive data set of Holocene pollen and sedimentary charcoal records, in combination with climate simulations and statistical modelling. Biomass burning was highest during the early Holocene and lowest during the mid-Holocene in all three ecoregions (Atlantic, continental and boreo-nemoral) but was more spatially variable over the past 3–4 kyr. Although climate explained a significant variance in biomass burning during the early Holocene, tree cover was consistently the highest predictor of past biomass burning over the past 8 kyr. In temperate forests, biomass burning was high at ∼45 % tree cover and decreased to a minimum at between 60 % and 70 % tree cover. In needleleaf-dominated forests, biomass burning was highest at ∼ 60 %–65 % tree cover and steeply declined at >65 % tree cover. Biomass burning also increased when arable lands and grasslands reached ∼ 15 %–20 %, although this relationship was variable depending on land use practice via ignition sources, fuel type and quantities. Higher tree cover reduced the amount of solar radiation reaching the forest floor and could provide moister, more wind-protected microclimates underneath canopies, thereby decreasing fuel flammability. Tree cover at which biomass burning increased appears to be driven by warmer and drier summer conditions during the early Holocene and by increasing human influence on land cover during the late Holocene. We suggest that long-term fire hazard may be effectively reduced through land cover management, given that land cover has controlled fire regimes under the dynamic climates of the Holocene.

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Fire risk modulation by long-term dynamics in land cover and dominant forest type in Eastern and Central Europe

10.5194/bg-2019-260 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Angelica Feurdean ◽

Boris Vannière ◽

Walter Finsinger ◽

Dan Warren ◽

Simon C. Connor ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Cover ◽

Fire Regime ◽

Forest Type ◽

Full Range ◽

Fire Risk ◽

Early Holocene ◽

Tree Cover ◽

Data Set ◽

The Past

Abstract. Wildfire occurrence is influenced by climate, vegetation and human activities. A key challenge for understanding fire-climate-vegetation interactions is to quantify the effect vegetation has in mediating fire regime. Here, we explore the relative importance of Holocene land cover and dominant functional forest type, and climate dynamics on biomass burned in temperate and boreo-nemoral regions of Central and Eastern Europe over the past 12 ka BP years. We used an extensive data set of Holocene pollen and sedimentary charcoal records, in combination with climate simulations and novel statistical modelling. Biomass burned was highest during the early Holocene and lowest during the mid Holocene in all three ecoregions, but diverged more markedly over the past 3–4 ka BP. Although the climate was an important driver of fire hazard during the warm and dry early Holocene, tree cover was consistently the strongest predictor of past biomass burning. In temperate forests, biomass burned was high at ~ 45 % tree cover and decreased strongly towards 60 % tree cover. In needleleaf dominated forests, biomass burned was highest at ~ 60–65 % tree cover and abruptly declined at > 65 % tree cover. Biomass burned also increased when arable lands and grasslands reached ~ 15–20 %, although this relationship was highly dynamic depending on land use intensity throughout ignition and fuel type and availability. Our observations cover the full range of Holocene climate variability and land cover changes and illustrates that percentages of land cover is a key predictor of the probability of fire occurrence over timescales of centuries to millennia. We suggest that long-term fire risk may be effectively reduced through land cover management, given that land cover has controlled fire regimes under the dynamic climates of the Holocene.

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