Includes bibliographical references and index.

Print version record.

1. Why forest monitoring matters for people and the planet / Ruth DeFries -- 2. Role of forests and impact of deforestation in the global carbon cycle / Richard A. Houghton -- 3. Use of earth observation technology to monitor forests across the globe / Frédéric Achard and Matthew C. Hansen -- 4. Global data availability from U.S. satellites : Landsat and MODIS / Thomas R. Loveland and Matthew C. Hansen -- 5. Sampling strategies for forest monitoring from global to national levels / Stephen V. Stehman -- 6. Use of coarse-resolution imagery to identify hot spots of forest loss at the global scale / Matthew C. Hansen, Peter Potapov, and Svetlana Turubanova -- 7. Use of a systematic statistical sample with moderate-resolution imagery to assess forest cover changes at tropical to global scale / Frédéric Achard [and others] -- 8. Monitoring forest loss and degradation at national to global scales using Landsat data / Peter Potapov [and others] -- 9. The Brazilian Amazon monitoring program : PRODES and DETER projects / Yosio Edemir Shimabukuro [and others] -- 10. Monitoring of forest degradation : a review of methods in the Amazon Basin / Carlos Souza, Jr. -- 11. Use of wall-to-wall moderate- and high-resolution satellite imagery to monitor forest cover across Europe / Jesús San-Miguel-Ayanz [and others] -- 12. Monitoring U.S. forest dynamics with Landsat / Jeffrey G. Masek and Sean P. Healey -- 13. Long-term monitoring of Australian land cover change using Landsat data : development, implementation, and operation / Peter Caccetta [and others] -- 14. Assessment of burned forest areas over the Russian Federation from MODIS and Landsat-TM/ETM+ imagery / Sergey Bartalev [and others] -- 15. Global forest monitoring with synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data / Richard Lucas [and others] -- 16. Future perspectives (way forward) / Alan Belward [and others].

Forests provide a large range of beneficial services, including tangible ones such as timber and recreation, and intangible services such as climate regulation, biodiversity, and watershed protection. On the other hand, forests can also be considered roadblocks to progress that occupy space more productively used for agriculture, making consideration of their regulating services crucial for balancing land use and forest loss. Monitoring forest cover and loss is critical for obtaining the data necessary to help define what is needed to maintain the varying forest service requirements in differe.

Open Access EbpS