Scientists Use Google Earth and Crowdsourcing to Map Uncharted Forests


Katie Fletcher, Tesfay Woldemariam and Fred Stolle at EcoWatch: “No single person could ever hope to count the world’s trees. But a crowd of them just counted the world’s drylands forests—and, in the process, charted forests never before mapped, cumulatively adding up to an area equivalent in size to the Amazon rainforest.

Current technology enables computers to automatically detect forest area through satellite data in order to adequately map most of the world’s forests. But drylands, where trees are fewer and farther apart, stymied these modern methods. To measure the extent of forests in drylands, which make up more than 40 percent of land surface on Earth, researchers from UN Food and Agriculture Organization, World Resources Institute and several universities and organizations had to come up with unconventional techniques. Foremost among these was turning to residents, who contributed their expertise through local map-a-thons….

Google Earth collects satellite data from several satellites with a variety of resolutions and technical capacities. The dryland satellite imagery collection compiled by Google from various providers, including Digital Globe, is of particularly high quality, as desert areas have little cloud cover to obstruct the views. So while difficult for algorithms to detect non-dominant land cover, the human eye has no problem distinguishing trees in the landscapes. Using this advantage, the scientists decided to visually count trees in hundreds of thousands of high-resolution images to determine overall dryland tree cover….

Armed with the quality images from Google that allowed researchers to see objects as small as half a meter (about 20 inches) across, the team divided the global dryland images into 12 regions, each with a regional partner to lead the counting assessment. The regional partners in turn recruited local residents with practical knowledge of the landscape to identify content in the sample imagery. These volunteers would come together in participatory mapping workshops, known colloquially as “map-a-thons.”…

Utilizing local landscape knowledge not only improved the map quality but also created a sense of ownership within each region. The map-a-thon participants have access to the open source tools and can now use these data and results to better engage around land use changes in their communities. Local experts, including forestry offices, can also use this easily accessible application to continue monitoring in the future.

Global Forest Watch uses medium resolution satellites (30 meters or about 89 feet) and sophisticated algorithms to detect near-real time deforestation in densely forested area. The dryland tree cover maps complement Global Forest Watch by providing the capability to monitor non-dominant tree cover and small-scale, slower-moving events like degradation and restoration. Mapping forest change at this level of detail is critical both for guiding land decisions and enabling government and business actors to demonstrate their pledges are being fulfilled, even over short periods of time.

The data documented by local participants will enable scientists to do many more analyses on both natural and man-made land changes including settlements, erosion features and roads. Mapping the tree cover in drylands is just the beginning….(More)”.