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AGRESTA is collaborating with the Government of Nicaragua to reduce CO2 emissions

15/09/2017 por agresta_admin

Agresta is working with the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (Ministerio del Ambiente y los Recursos Naturales, MARENA) of the Nicaraguan Government to develop reference levels for forest emissions and removals as for their Emission Reduction programme, as well as to set up the system for Monitoring, Reporting and Verification within the framework of the country’s REDD+ strategy: Nicaragua is currently finalising their Emission Reduction proposal which will be presented to the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), managed by the World Bank.

The Forest Carbon Partnership Facility is a global partnership of governments, businesses, civil society, and Indigenous Peoples focused on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, forest carbon stock conservation, the sustainable management of forests, and the enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries (activities commonly referred to as REDD+). The Carbon Fund selected countries in line with negotiated contracts to reduce emissions. Payments from the Carbon Fund aim to provide an incentive to the receiving countries and the various stakeholders –including indigenous peoples who are dependent on the forest, other forest dwellers and the private sector- to achieve long-term sustainability in the funding of forest conservation and planning. This would help reduce the negative impact of forest loss and degradation on global climate.

Agresta is working in conjunction with the multidisciplinary team responsible for forest monitoring in Nicaragua in order to develop the framework and methodologies necessary for carbon stock accounting, as well as creating a CO2 emissions reference scenario based on satellite information and the national forest inventory. At the same time, a framework is being developed which in the future will allow the policies and programmes which the Government is going to implement in the autonomous regions of the Caribbean to be monitored, validated and reported on. In addition to working on the preparation of documents and protocols, over the next few months Agresta will carry out face-to-face training in geographic information systems, forest inventory data analysis techniques and uncertainties analysis with the national team responsible for these areas over the coming years.

AGRESTA at the “Conférences de bois” in Bordeaux making a presentation on LiDAR and remote sensing and their application in the forestry sector

08/09/2017 por agresta_admin

Last September 5th, 2017, Nur Algeet, PhD in Forestry Engineering and specialist in remote sensing, and David García, expert in innovation and development, both of whom are part of the R&D team at AGRESTA, gave a presentation in the French city of Bordeaux as part of the Bordeaux Sciences Agro – Amphithéâtre Sylvae – Bâtiment Brémontier entitled “Remote sensing applied to the evaluation and management of forest resources: LiDAR and satellite data”(“Télédétection appliquée à l´évaluation et la gestion des ressources forestières : LiDAR et données satellitaires”).

The presentation formed part of the «Conférences des bois», a series of conferences aimed at promoting and strengthening the image of the forestry sector among students and professionals which are being held every Tuesday throughout the year as part of the “Plateforme de Formation Supérieure Forêt Bois de l’Initiative d’Excellence de l’Université de Bordeaux”.

See the calendar for “Conférences des bois” 2017-2018: programme

All the conferences are shared with Quebec within the AQforêt-Bois agreement and can be followed live through videoconference. Each presentation is filmed and is made available to the general public.

Watch the presentation: video

The objective of the conference was to present and share the various remote sensing techniques currently available, highlighting each ones strengths and weaknesses and providing specific examples of how they can be applied in the sector and their impact on the forest and wood industry (benefits, disadvantages, business models etc.). New technologies and processes based on remote sensing, which until recently played no part in the forest-wood industry, are gradually strengthening, or even replacing, the traditional tools for forestry inventories and monitoring, and are indeed becoming indispensable. New opportunities are opening up thanks to the huge quantity of increasingly powerful, and easily obtainable satellite data now available which is cheap or even free, along with other high accuracy technologies such as LiDAR and photogrammetry.

Watch the presentation “Remote sensing applied to the evaluation and management of forest resources: LiDAR and satellite data”:»: presentation

Article published in the scientific journal “iForest. Biogeosciences and Forestry”

01/03/2017 por agresta_admin

The scientific journal iforest from the Italian Society of Silviculture and Forest Ecology has just published an article whose lead authors are researchers from AGRESTA who analysed various methods for generating high resolution cartography of forest biomass in tropical forests. The area studied, as a pilot study, was the National Volcano Park in Poás (Costa Rica), which has a high degree of structural and species diversity.

The journal iforest is Open Access, so the publication is freely available for any reader from the following link:

[button link=»http://www.sisef.it/iforest/contents/?id=ifor1744-009″ color=»green» newwindow=»yes»] Download article[/button]

This work validated the general LiDAR model for estimating aerial biomass in tropical forest proposed by Asnar and Mascaro in 2014 and the results were compared with those obtained from models specifically adjusted to the study area. All the models used are based on the variable top-of-canopy height (TCH) derived from the LiDAR digital model of height of vegetation. The results in the study area demonstrate that, firstly, the chosen tree allometry is of great importance if appropriate results are to be obtained, and, secondly, that the general model is a reliable alternative to the specifically adjusted local models (especially when no specific tree allometry is available for the area). With the general model, aerial biomass can be estimated in a new area on the basis of only field measurements of basal area (BA).

Top-of-canopy Height (TCH) and Basal Area (BA) values for Poás Volcano National
Park (Costa Rica). TCHvalues were obtained through LiDAR data and BA values were
derived from an origin-forced linear regression BA-TCH.

Location of Poás Volcano National Park in Alajuela Province (Costa Rica) and spatial distribution of field plots and Holdrige’s life zones in the area.

AGRESTA Project in Madagascar

25/01/2017 por agresta_admin

AGRESTA has begun a new Project for the FCPF (Forest Carbon Partenrship Facility) of the World Bank, this time in Madagascar.

Following on from our first job with the FCPF in Costa Rica we have decide to continue in this line of work, which combines our experience in remote sensing (within our Forest Resource Evaluation Work Area) and in carbon and forests projects (within the Climate Change Work Area).

This is a job that we won through a tendering process where we were competing against some of the biggest organizations working in the sector. In developing the proposal, a consortium was created comprising a local organization (Project Manondroala) and a French company specialised in cartography and remote sensing (Pôle Carto). Our role here at Agresta will be the analysis of the changes in use of land based on remote sensing data with the aim of determining climate change implications and obtaining reference levels for these changes (deforestation, degradation, etc.). This project is within the framework of a national level REDD+ project located in the northeast of the country.