The Land Cover and Land Use Change Observatory addresses major uncertainties in the extent, drivers, and consequences of deforestation and forest degradation in the Congo Basin, especially their feedbacks on climate and ecosystem services. Despite increasing attention to forest loss in the region, comprehensive, high-resolution monitoring of land use change remains limited. This lack of data constrains the ability to assess degradation accurately, predict long-term impacts on rainfall and carbon storage, and design effective land management policies.
Lead researchers and institutions
The Observatory is co-led by Dr Medard Obiang (University of Omar Bongo, Gabon) and Prof Suspense Ifo Averti (University of Marien Ngouabi, Republic of the Congo), supported by Prof Dominick Spracklen (University of Leeds, UK), an expert in land-atmosphere interactions and remote sensing of tropical forests.
The Observatory will also support two PhD students at Omar Bongo University, one PhD student at Marien Ngouabi University, and one PhD at Leeds University. To read more about each of the scholarship research projects in the Land Cover Observatory, click here.
Research objectives
The Observatory will exploit new developments in satellite remote sensing to make a comprehensive assessment of forest degradation in the Congo Basin and assess how land management policies reduce rates of degradation and deforestation, whilst also collecting new field data to improve existing models based on satellite data. The Observatory will also investigate the impact of non-logging activities, including charcoal production and mining, for a more complete monitoring of forest degradation. Using satellite data, climate reanalysis products and local weather station data, the Observatory will produce the first detailed assessment of how deforestation and degradation is altering evapotranspiration and rainfall recycling, and quantify the impacts on agriculture in the region.
The key outputs are:
- A map for forest degradation (not deforestation which is successfully monitored by Global Forest Watch) across the Congo Basin including how it has evolved over the past decade.
- An assessment of which land management policies reduce rates of deforestation and forest degradation.
- An assessment and map of how much rainfall is being reduced by deforestation and forest degradation in the Congo basin, and the prospects of breaching a tipping point threshold whereby forest cannot persist.
Links to other observatories
Collaboration with the Vegetation Observatory will provide a large volume of data on forest structure in selectively logged forest, which will be used to capture how extensive forest degradation is across the Congo basin. Coordination with the Biodiversity Observatory will enable them to scale assessments of mammal diversity and abundance by land cover type to the region. The Land Cover Observatory will also work closely with the Climate Observatory in the assessment of the impact of forest change for rainfall cycling, and with the Socio-Ecology Observatory to provide remotely sensed data to local communities to assist them in the management of their territories.
News and publications
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