How to capture the mediterranean forested landscape complexity using remote-sensing tools

[Notes_IRSTEA]S 2.2: Monitoring forest biodiversity using remote sensing [Departement_IRSTEA]Territoires [TR1_IRSTEA]SYNERGIE [Axe_IRSTEA]TETIS-ATTOS [ADD1_IRSTEA]Dynamique et fonctionnement des écosystèmes

International audience

English. The Mediterranean forests have been used for millennia and are organized according to a heterogeneous and complex landscape particularly beneficial to biological diversity. The forests have been degraded by overgrazing and exploitation for firewood, but also as a result of fires. Such forest areas may become open, secondary forests with several understories, but if not properly managed they may turn into varied types of high or low matorral (dry shrubland) or in some areas to heathlands that could be degraded into sparsely vegetated areas. As a result, there is an urgent need for monitoring tools to inform changes in this valuable ecosystem to support public policies to protect a sustainable management of these biodiversity hotspots. In the framework of the Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBV) developed by the GEO-BON, six classes of variables have been defined to cover different key indicators, including ecosystem structure, which is intimately linked to the fauna and flora richness. Remotely-sensed earth observation (RS) has become essential to provide a rapid, repeated and synoptic access of these EBVs (i.e., RS-enabled EBVs): the increasing availability of open access satellite data provides enhanced possibilities to monitor this natural landscape under increasing anthropic pressures. Mediterranean ecosystem could be monitor with various types of sensors, providing information on key indicators like structure, function and composition at frequent revisit times and high to very high spatial resolution. The support of innovative descriptors involving tools such as light sensors embedded on drones, spectro-radiometers or terrestrial Lidar are also needed.