Quantifying deforestation and forest degradation with thermal response.
2017
Lin, Hua | Chen, Yajun | Song, Qinghai | Fu, Peili | Cleverly, James | Magliulo, Vincenzo | Law, Beverly E. | Gough, Christopher M. | Hörtnagl, Lukas | Di Gennaro, Filippo | Matteucci, Giorgio | Montagnani, Leonardo | Duce, Pierpaolo | Shao, Changliang | Kato, Tomomichi | Bonal, Damien | Paul-Limoges, Eugénie | Beringer, Jason | Grace, John | Fan, Zexin | Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden ; Chinese Academy of Sciences [Beijing] (CAS) | University of Technology Sydney (UTS) | Istituto per i Sistemi Agricoli e Forestali del Mediterraneo (ISAFOM) | Oregon State University (OSU) | Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) | Institute of Agricultural Sciences | Istituto di Biometeorologia [Firenze] (IBIMET) ; National Research Council of Italy | Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) | Free University of Bozen-Bolzano | Michigan State University [East Lansing] ; Michigan State University System | Hokkaido University [Sapporo, Japan] | Ecologie et Ecophysiologie Forestières [devient SILVA en 2018] (EEF) ; Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-Université de Lorraine (UL) | Swiss Federal Institute of Technology | The University of Western Australia (UWA) | The University of Edinburgh | Applied Fundamental Research Program of Yunnan Province (2013FB078); National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC, 31200307) ; CAS 135 program (XTBG-F01) | ANR-10-LABX-0025,CEBA,CEnter of the study of Biodiversity in Amazonia(2010)
Deforestation and forest degradation cause the deterioration of resources and ecosystem services. However, there are still no operational indicators to measure forest status, especially for forest degradation. In the present study, we analysed the thermal response number (TRN, calculated by daily total net radiation divided by daily temperature range) of 163 sites including mature forest, disturbed forest, planted forest, shrubland, grassland, savanna vegetation and cropland. TRN generally increased with latitude, however the regression of TRN against latitude differed among vegetation types. Mature forests are superior as thermal buffers, and had significantly higher TRN than disturbed and planted forests. There was a clear boundary between TRN of forest and non-forest vegetation (i.e. grassland and savanna) with the exception of shrubland, whose TRN overlapped with that of forest vegetation. We propose to use the TRN of local mature forest as the optimal TRN (TRNopt). A forest with lower than 75% of TRNopt was identified as subjected to significant disturbance, and forests with 66% of TRNopt was the threshold for deforestation within the absolute latitude from 30° to 55°. Our results emphasized the irreplaceable thermal buffer capacity of mature forest. TRN can be used for early warning of deforestation and degradation risk. It is therefore a valuable tool in the effort to protect forests and prevent deforestation.
Show more [+] Less [-]AGROVOC Keywords
Bibliographic information
This bibliographic record has been provided by Institut national de la recherche agronomique