Forest loss declined 18% in African nations where a new satellite-based program provides free alerts when it detects deforestation activities.
A research collaboration that included Jennifer Alix-Garcia of Oregon State University found that the Global Land Analysis and Discovery System, known as GLAD, resulted in carbon sequestration benefits worth hundreds of millions of dollars in GLAD’s first two years.
Findings were published today in Nature Climate Change.
The premise of GLAD is simple: Subscribe to the system, launch a free web application, receive email alerts when the GLAD algorithm detects deforestation going on and then take action to save forests.
GLAD, launched in 2016, delivers alerts created by the University of Maryland’s Global Land Analysis and Discovery lab based on high-resolution satellite imaging from NASA’s Landsat Science program. The information is made available to subscribers via the interactive web application, Global Forest Watch.
Read more at: Oregon State University
Photo Credit: Picography via Pixabay