Very Rapid Forest Cover Change in Sichuan Province, China: 40 Years of Change Using Images From Declassified Spy Satellites and Landsat
Forests have significant impacts on the global carbon cycle, hydrological processes, and biodiversity. Driven by socioeconomic developments, forests experienced drastic changes since the mid-20th century in China. Although declassified spy satellite and other Earth observation satellite data offer r...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IEEE
2021-01-01
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| Series: | IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9580698/ |
| _version_ | 1818942790791331840 |
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| author | Dan-Xia Song Chengquan Huang Tao He Min Feng Ainong Li Sike Li Yong Pang Hao Wu Abdul Rashid Mohamed Shariff John Townshend |
| author_facet | Dan-Xia Song Chengquan Huang Tao He Min Feng Ainong Li Sike Li Yong Pang Hao Wu Abdul Rashid Mohamed Shariff John Townshend |
| author_sort | Dan-Xia Song |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Forests have significant impacts on the global carbon cycle, hydrological processes, and biodiversity. Driven by socioeconomic developments, forests experienced drastic changes since the mid-20th century in China. Although declassified spy satellite and other Earth observation satellite data offer remote sensing technologies for mapping these long-term changes, challenges remain unsolved for applications of large volumes of historical data. This study uses long-term satellite observations, including declassified satellite data in the 1960s and Landsat products since the 1970s to monitor the decadal changes. A semi-automated method was developed for the rapid registration of declassified images with reference to Landsat data. The method was applied to quantify the forest cover (FC) in Sichuan Province (excluding Chongqing), China. Combined with a Landsat-based FC change product, it revealed that the FC in Sichuan declined rapidly by 38% from the 1960s to 2005. The FC was estimated to be 45.19 ± 1.62% in the 1960s and 38.98 ± 2.06% in 1975, but it rapidly decreased to 28.91 ± 2.07% in 1990 and 27.87 ± 2.14% by 2005. Supplemented with the official statistics, the FC in Sichuan was reported to increase to 38.03% by 2018. Although differences between the remote sensing-based estimates and the statistics were observed, they highlight the challenges in reconstructing historical land use changes for carbon and other studies. The drastic loss of forests before 1990 and the stabilizing afterward reflects the changes in forest policies, which transitioned from serving timber products to forest conservations. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-20T07:17:02Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-b24b552558394044a716cec59f340840 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2151-1535 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-20T07:17:02Z |
| publishDate | 2021-01-01 |
| publisher | IEEE |
| record_format | Article |
| series | IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing |
| spelling | doaj.art-b24b552558394044a716cec59f3408402022-12-21T19:48:45ZengIEEEIEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing2151-15352021-01-0114109641097610.1109/JSTARS.2021.31212609580698Very Rapid Forest Cover Change in Sichuan Province, China: 40 Years of Change Using Images From Declassified Spy Satellites and LandsatDan-Xia Song0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6475-7016Chengquan Huang1Tao He2Min Feng3Ainong Li4https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4543-5118Sike Li5Yong Pang6https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9760-6580Hao Wu7https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5751-7885Abdul Rashid Mohamed Shariff8John Townshend9College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, ChinaDepartment of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USASchool of Remote Sensing and Information Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan, ChinaNational Tibetan Plateau Data Center Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environmental Changes and Land Surface Processes, CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences and Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, ChinaInstitute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, ChinaSchool of Earth Atmosphere and Environment, Monash University, Clayton Campus, VIC, AustraliaInstitute of Forest Resource Information Techniques, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, ChinaCollege of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, ChinaDepartment of Biological and Agricultural Engineering Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Serdang, MalaysiaDepartment of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USAForests have significant impacts on the global carbon cycle, hydrological processes, and biodiversity. Driven by socioeconomic developments, forests experienced drastic changes since the mid-20th century in China. Although declassified spy satellite and other Earth observation satellite data offer remote sensing technologies for mapping these long-term changes, challenges remain unsolved for applications of large volumes of historical data. This study uses long-term satellite observations, including declassified satellite data in the 1960s and Landsat products since the 1970s to monitor the decadal changes. A semi-automated method was developed for the rapid registration of declassified images with reference to Landsat data. The method was applied to quantify the forest cover (FC) in Sichuan Province (excluding Chongqing), China. Combined with a Landsat-based FC change product, it revealed that the FC in Sichuan declined rapidly by 38% from the 1960s to 2005. The FC was estimated to be 45.19 ± 1.62% in the 1960s and 38.98 ± 2.06% in 1975, but it rapidly decreased to 28.91 ± 2.07% in 1990 and 27.87 ± 2.14% by 2005. Supplemented with the official statistics, the FC in Sichuan was reported to increase to 38.03% by 2018. Although differences between the remote sensing-based estimates and the statistics were observed, they highlight the challenges in reconstructing historical land use changes for carbon and other studies. The drastic loss of forests before 1990 and the stabilizing afterward reflects the changes in forest policies, which transitioned from serving timber products to forest conservations.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9580698/Declassified spy satellite (DSS)forest cover change (FCC)image registrationlandsat |
| spellingShingle | Dan-Xia Song Chengquan Huang Tao He Min Feng Ainong Li Sike Li Yong Pang Hao Wu Abdul Rashid Mohamed Shariff John Townshend Very Rapid Forest Cover Change in Sichuan Province, China: 40 Years of Change Using Images From Declassified Spy Satellites and Landsat IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing Declassified spy satellite (DSS) forest cover change (FCC) image registration landsat |
| title | Very Rapid Forest Cover Change in Sichuan Province, China: 40 Years of Change Using Images From Declassified Spy Satellites and Landsat |
| title_full | Very Rapid Forest Cover Change in Sichuan Province, China: 40 Years of Change Using Images From Declassified Spy Satellites and Landsat |
| title_fullStr | Very Rapid Forest Cover Change in Sichuan Province, China: 40 Years of Change Using Images From Declassified Spy Satellites and Landsat |
| title_full_unstemmed | Very Rapid Forest Cover Change in Sichuan Province, China: 40 Years of Change Using Images From Declassified Spy Satellites and Landsat |
| title_short | Very Rapid Forest Cover Change in Sichuan Province, China: 40 Years of Change Using Images From Declassified Spy Satellites and Landsat |
| title_sort | very rapid forest cover change in sichuan province china 40 years of change using images from declassified spy satellites and landsat |
| topic | Declassified spy satellite (DSS) forest cover change (FCC) image registration landsat |
| url | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9580698/ |
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