Congo Basin countries and surface area covered.
<div><p>The Congo Basin tropical forests are home to many endemic and endangered species, and a global hotspot for forest fragmentation and loss. Yet, little has been done to document the region’s rapid deforestation, assess its effects and consequences, or project future forest cover lo...
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2024
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| Summary: | <div><p>The Congo Basin tropical forests are home to many endemic and endangered species, and a global hotspot for forest fragmentation and loss. Yet, little has been done to document the region’s rapid deforestation, assess its effects and consequences, or project future forest cover loss to aid in effective planning. Here we applied the Random Forest (RF) supervised classification algorithm in Google Earth Engine (GEE) to map and quantify decadal changes in forest cover and land use (LCLU) in the Congo Basin between 1990 and 2020. We cross-validated our LCLU maps with existing global land cover products, and projected our validated results to 2050 under three climate change scenarios, using the Multiperceptron Artificial Neural Network and Markov chain algorithms of the Idrissi Land Change modeller from TerrSet. We found that, over 5.2% (215,938 km<sup>2</sup>), 1.2% (50,046 km<sup>2</sup>), and a 2.1% (86,658 km<sup>2</sup>) of dense forest cover were lost in the Congo Basin between 1990–2000, 2000–2010, and 2010–2020, totaling approximately 8.5% (352,642 km<sup>2</sup>) loss estimated between 1990–2020. For the period 2020–2050, we estimated a projected 3.7–4.0% (174,860–204,161 km<sup>2</sup>) loss in dense forest cover under all three climate change scenarios (i.e., 174,860 km<sup>2</sup> loss projected for SSP1-2.6, 199,608 km<sup>2</sup> for SSP2-4.5, and 204,161 km<sup>2</sup> for SSP5-8.5), suggesting that approximately 12.3–12.6% (527,502 km<sup>2</sup>–556,803 km<sup>2</sup>) of dense forest cover could be lost over a 60-year period (1990–2050). Our study represents a novel application of spatial modeling tools and Machine Learning algorithms for assessing long-term deforestation and forest degradation within the Congo Basin, under human population growth and IPCC climate change scenarios. We provide spatial and quantitative results required for supporting long-term deforestation and forest degradation monitoring within Congo Basin countries, especially under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) REDD+ (Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) program.</p></div> |
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