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Using Open Foris Collect Earth in Kyrgyzstan to support greenhouse gas inventory in the land use, land use change, and forestry sector

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Abstract

The Kyrgyz Republic (Kyrgyzstan) is one of the countries most vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change in Central Asia. The land use, land use change, and forestry (LULUCF) sector is critical in climate change mitigation in Kyrgyzstan and is integral to national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories. However, consistent, complete, and updated activity data is required for the LULUCF sector to develop a transparent GHG inventory. Collect Earth (CE), developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), is a free, user-friendly, and open-source tool for collecting activity data for the LULUCF sector. CE assists countries in developing GHG inventories by providing consistent and complete land representation. This article reports an estimate of land use and land-use change dynamics in Kyrgyzstan, based on analyzing 13,414 1-hectare (ha) sampling units through an augmented visual interpretation approach using satellite imagery at the very high spatial and temporal resolution available through the Google Earth platform. The results show that in 2019, forests covered 1.36 million ha or 6.83% of the total land with a 6.23% uncertainty. This estimate was 5 to 16% higher than previous estimates, detecting an additional 63,024 to 188,164 ha of forestland that had not been reported previously. The new estimates suggest an average increase of 10.4% in the current forestlands of Kyrgyzstan.

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Data availability

The data supporting this study’s findings are available on request from the corresponding author, Caglar Bassullu.

Notes

  1. The total area (19,905,183 ha) of Kyrgyzstan is created by CE (extracted from areas_per_attribute.csv) and could differ from the official statistics (19,995,100 ha).

  2. The total area (19,180,000 ha) of Kyrgyzstan by FAO and could differ from the official statistics (19,995,100 ha).

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Acknowledgements

We thank 29 operators who participated in the “Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry Assessment Training” between 15 and 25 April 2019 in Bishkek/Kyrgyzstan; Mr. Ekrem Yazıcı, Lead Technical Officer, for his kind supervision, and Ms. Cholpon Alibakieva, Ms. Cholpon Esenbekova, and Mr. Abdymital Chyngojoev for their support in organizing the training. We would also like to thank anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the manuscript.

Funding

The CE tool was developed and is sustained in FAO with support from the Google Earth Outreach team. It is funded by the International Climate Initiative of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building, and Nuclear Safety. Collect Earth is based on Collect software, developed with support from the FAO-Finland Technical Cooperation Programme. The authors declare that this study received funding from the Project “Sustainable Management of Mountainous Forest and Land Resources under Climate Change Conditions (GCP/KYR/010/GFF)” supported by Global Environmental Facility (GEF). The funders were not involved in the study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of data, the writing of this article, or the decision to submit it for publication.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Caglar Bassullu

  2. Foreign Relations, Training, and Research Department, General Directorate of Forestry, Ankara, Türkiye

    Caglar Bassullu

  3. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy

    Pablo Martín-Ortega

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  1. Caglar Bassullu
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  2. Pablo Martín-Ortega
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Contributions

Pablo Martín-Ortega established the CE methodology and survey (area of attributes file, national grids, and Azerbaijan Mapathon (pilot CSV file)). Caglar Bassullu and Pablo Martín-Ortega designed and delivered capacity-building training. Caglar Bassullu and Pablo Martín-Ortega collected and coordinated the data collection by other operators through CE. Pablo Martín-Ortega conducted the quality control, data cleansing procedure, and reassessment of inconsistent sampling units. Pablo Martín-Ortega performed the statistical analyses. Caglar Bassullu conceived, designed, and wrote the paper. Caglar Bassullu and Pablo Martín-Ortega edited the manuscript. All authors contributed to the manuscript revision and read and approved the submitted version. The authors declare no competing financial interest.

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Correspondence to Caglar Bassullu.

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Bassullu, C., Martín-Ortega, P. Using Open Foris Collect Earth in Kyrgyzstan to support greenhouse gas inventory in the land use, land use change, and forestry sector. Environ Monit Assess 195, 977 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-023-11591-1

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