Departments

Some (known) facts:

• From 1700 to 1980 it is estimated that forest and woodland declined in area from 6.2 billion ha to 5.1 billion ha, and that crop land increased from 20 million ha to 1.5 billion ha.
• Work by FAO shows that the area of tropical forest cover is reducing by 0.8% per year (that is 15.4 million hectares per year or almost half a hectare per minute); most of this forest area being converted to farm land.
  Cropping activity on the farmland continues to become more intensive (through the use of improved seed varieties, fertilisers and other inputs), while in forested areas extensive logging of old growth forests is being replaced by intensive logging and plantations.
• Land is being degraded by unsustainable management.
• A global assessment of soil degradation study conducted by the United Nations Environment Programme concluded that since 1945 over 1.2 billion ha (10.5%) of soil has been damaged to such an extent it has moderately to severely affect its original biotic function.

Also water is becoming a limiting factor in many regions. In order to increase agricultural production through irrigation, demand for water has quadrupled since the turn of the century. At the same time, urban and rural populations require access to clean water and sanitation; both are key public health issues in less developed countries. Impounding water has obvious environmental problems. But when coupled with catchments protection schemes to retain soils (in order to protect the dam from silt), net environmental benefits can ensue.

The main threat to forests, worldwide, is their rapid conversion to non-forest land, more specifically to agricultural land, though expanding cities and industrial areas are of increasing importance. This is due to a complex of factors, especially rapid population growth, migration, rising economic expectations, and economic development, incl. agricultural export expansion. Illegal logging practices, and other unsustainable use of the forest and their products, further  aggravate the situation. The consequences are large scale deforestation and forest degradation, especially in the tropics. In addition, many agricultural practices lead to degradation of agricultural land, which only further increases the pressure on the remaining forests. FAO estimates the current rates of deforestation alone at around 13 million ha each year.

The disappearance and degradation of vast areas of forests each year has grave consequences for the world’s biodiversity and for the climate. Forests, worldwide, account for approximately 80% of all terrestrial biodiversity, while the permanent loss of the forest biomass adds to the already large amounts of CO2 emanated into the atmosphere by the industrialized and industrializing nations. Agenda 21 has given ‘Combating deforestation’ a very prominent place, while the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 defines afforestation and reforestation as approved tools to at least partly sequester the CO2 increase of the atmosphere. Related international conventions, which are highly relevant for our work at ITC and in the world are the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the Convention on wetlands (Ramsar). Other documents in the International Environmental Agenda are the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), The report of the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD), and recently the reports of the Group on Earth observation to build a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). We are member of the Scientific and Technical Board of Global Observations of Forest and Land Cover Dynamics (GOFC-GOLD)

Within ITC, we develop human capacity and produce scientific output, necessary to assess, monitor and model the forest and tree resources and its changes, in order to support sound  decision making. Our scope spans from local to global level; our operations take place primarily at sub-national level in both tropical and non-tropical countries. We recognize two major forest and tree resource categories: (a) closed and open forests, and (b) trees outside the forest. The first category comprises all forms of natural and planted forests. The second category comprises all other tree resources, like those in agricultural lands. Each resource category requires its specific focal areas of investigation and development, as does the interaction between both. From a thematic point of view, our focus is on geographic information for Biodiversity conservation, Carbon sequestration and climate change, Sustainable forest and tree resource management, Combating deforestation and forest degradation, and supported by Geo-information technology and the development of Decision Support Systems, visualization of information and information technology.

Biodiversity conservation
 Tropical forests are particularly important because they contain some 50% of the earth´s  biodiversity, yet little is known about its spatial distribution and ecological functioning, nor on the effects of fragmentation of the forested landscapes. In many, now deforested areas, the landscape often contains trees that once belonged to the original forest. These form the only remaining resource of the original biodiversity. Information on diversity, on presence and state should be available, but is largely absent. We address questions and issues in which geographic information is critical in the assessment and conservation of forest and tree biodiversity.

Carbon sequestration and climate change
Under the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol developing countries can receive financial compensation for afforestation and reforestation activities. Most countries that qualify for such A/R-CDM projects lack the capacity to meet the stringent requirements stipulated under the CDM, particularly with regards to identification of eligible land, development of baselines, the assessment of effects, and monitoring of actual carbon sequestration. Assisting these countries in developing capacity, tools, and methodologies can earn them large sums of money, particularly when a reduction of uncertainty in the assessment of carbon sequestration can be achieved.

Recent developments in the continuing multi-lateral discussions on the UNFCCC give the expectation that proper management of existing forests may in the near future be eligible for carbon sequestration credits as well, in particular through a mechanism called Reduced Emissions. Under the proposed Reduced Emissions scheme, reduction in the long-term deforestation rate may be compensated. There are many methodological challenges to such a simple proposal though. From the forest management perspective these challenges relate mostly to the assessment of biomass in the forest, the assessment of degradation (as opposed to outright deforestation), and the accuracy with which synoptic observations from remote sensing can establish forest biomass and stand characteristics.

In the scientific environment there is general agreement that we are facing an acceleration in changes in climate. For many locations on earth these changes will be so rapid that there could be significant changes in vegetation and thus in the capacity of the natural environment to sustain certain forms of human inhabitation. Forests will be affected by climate change as well, and our understanding of forest ecology may help us to mitigate damage to forest ecosystems. This will be of tremendous benefits to people living in forested landscapes as this will give them more opportunities to respond to climate change as it is occurring.

Sustainable forest and tree resource management
Sustainable forest and tree management is closely related with the above two themes, but also has a relevance of its own when the sustainable provision of goods and services, and the protection of forest land are concerned. Forest and tree resources in general, have important on-site and  off-site effects, which affect the livelihood of people near or far away from the resources. Both categories benefit from these resources, but also, and often negatively, affect them. Given the importance of sustainably managed forest and tree resources, it is imperative to understand the processes that use or abuse the resources, which requires knowledge on the driving forces, including: resource use, demographic dynamics of the local resource users, their socio-economic situation, land tenure, agricultural diversity and crop productivity, as well as national and international market forces, to name some. Timber certification is another area of great attention. ITC focuses particularly on spatially explicit Criteria and Indicators. Assessment, modeling, and land use planning are other major tools.

Experience demonstrates the interdependency between sustainably managed forest and tree resources on the one hand, and sustainable agriculture on the other, which is a main area of interdisciplinary cooperation.

The role of forests and trees in water management is of increasing importance and is addressed in cooperation with the Water Resources department on developing a methodology for tree and tree vegetation transpiration in arid areas.

Combating deforestation and forest degradation
Combating deforestation is one of main targets of many international efforts. On the one hand this  is a promising outlook, on the other hand it shows, like many development problems, that it is very difficult to control. Achieving it will have immediate and positive effects on the conservation of biodiversity and on the reduction of carbon emissions through clearance and forest burning. Deforestation is often accompanied by a process of land degradation, abandonment and poverty. A successful combat of deforestation is a therefore a major achievement to prevent poverty. Assessment of the resource and the factors that govern deforestation, monitoring and modeling are essential tools. Because expanding agriculture is a main cause of the alarming deforestation in the tropics, an interdisciplinary approach is taken

Geo-information technology
No deforestation or forest degradation process can be controlled or reversed, if the underlying processes and their spatial effects are not well understood, measured and modeled. We need accurate, spatially explicit and dynamic measurements at often high spatial and temporal resolution, and integrate these measurements with the process models. Clearly, remote sensing, GIS, GPS, GIS-modeling, developing databases, spatial statistics, etc. are key tools for us.

DSS and information technology
 Our ultimate aim is to enable users of geo-information for forestry to make sound decisions on forest and tree resources and forest land, within the overall context of land use and land use planning. Decision support is necessary, but this will need a proper understanding of the decision making processes, which go beyond pure technical issues, and include organizational management, and information sharing protocols. Our role will concentrate on the assessment of information requirements by the users, on the tailored development of a decision support system, and of the technical components in such decision support systems.

• In the world there are 770 million hungry people
• Sources of insecurity: poverty, conflict, outbreaks of disease, and climatic variability
• Biodiversity

There is a widely-held belief that existing information about biodiversity is inadequate to support information needs. The gap between biodiversity information needs and existing information is real, as evidenced by estimates of discovered and described species vs. those known to exist. An example that illustrates this gap is the Global Environmental Outlook 2000 (UNEP, 1999), which cites 1.75 million species recognised by the scientific community while an estimated 12.5 million species exist.

However, a wealth of information to support biodiversity assessment and monitoring does exist. This includes a number of lists derived from scientifically rigorous criteria, such as the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN-SSC, 2003b) and the CITES Appendices (CITES, 2003).

In addition, extensive knowledge about population biology, ecological requirements of species and other pertinent information exists in a variety of sources, including (but not limited to) small databases, grey literature, field notes and the (undocumented) knowledge of research scientists (Cotter and Bauldock, 2000).