The geographical focus of research and development within the proposed ZAPÁS project is the test region in Central Siberia, which contains two administrative districts of Russia, namely Krasnoyarsk Kray and Irkutsk Oblast. The project team aims at develloping Earth observation products at two geographical scales. Improved regional scale land cover and biomass maps will be derrived for Central Siberia  to:

  • improve existing coarse scale land cover databases,
  • link them with biomass information from medium resolution Radar imagery, and
  • use these up-to-date land-cover and forest resource geo-information as input for a full carbon accounting.

The goal of the local site biomass and forest change mapping is to provide maps for local sites within Krasnoyarsk Kray and Irkutsk Oblast. Biomass maps refer to forest biomass maps based on PALSAR data, change maps refer to forest disturbance mapping as well as detection of potential new forest land (abandoned agricultural land). Here the project aims to:

  • Adapt and apply forest biomass estimation approach based on PALSAR data. Provide recent forest biomass maps for at least 10 local sites (5 for Krasnoyarsk Kray plus 5 for Irkutsk Oblast). Local site refers to forest enterprise subdivisions,
  • Provide forest disturbance maps (clear-cut & fire damage) for the same sites from above. Timeframe of change to be detected: 2000-recent,
  • Provide maps of recent abandoned land which corresponds to potential new forest land for 5 local sites within Krasnoyarsk Kray (same sites as selected above). Recent refers to the year 2005.

Overview of the Central Siberian study area around Krasnoyarsk (Russia)