Category: Climate change

Key research findings and final reflections

Following a busy few weeks of write-up and last-minute incorporation of results, my MSc thesis has been submitted! Though challenging at times, it has been an enjoyable and rewarding experience overall. I’m grateful that I got the chance to carry out my placement in Vietnam, and my supervisors in CIAT and NUI Galway were supportive and encouraging throughout.

Have a look at the results section for an overview of the key research findings. Continue reading “Key research findings and final reflections”

The importance of definitions in deforestation assessments

How forested land is defined in deforestation assessments has always been a “contentious” issue in Indonesia as the article below from Mongabay describes. International organisations such as the FAO define forest as “land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 5 meters and a canopy cover of more than 10 percent, or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ” (FAO, 2012a). Continue reading “The importance of definitions in deforestation assessments”

Project presentation to Irish Aid Vietnam

Yesterday my two classmates, my CIAT supervisor Tiffany Talsma, two of her CIAT colleagues and I met with Irish Aid Vietnam at the Irish Embassy in Hanoi. Irish Aid support the Vietnamese Government’s Socio-Economic Development Plan as well as funding the global CCAFS program. Below is a short Video summary of Irish Aid in Vietnam. Continue reading “Project presentation to Irish Aid Vietnam”

Heatwaves and wildfires: a new reality for Ireland’s forests

The recent spate of wildfires in Ireland following the heatwave are a reminder of how the climate and weather is changing and how it is affecting efforts to protect forests in Ireland. Even the best laid plans to protect forested areas can be brought down in mere days by uncontrollable wildfires. Prolonged hot and dry spells were once a rarity in Ireland but are becoming more frequent and with it come more favorable conditions for wildfires.

The biggest of the recent wildfires was in the Slieve Bloom mountains on the Laois/Offaly border. It had a front of over 4.5 miles and burned for more than a week. Although the full extent of the damage is not yet clear there are estimates of 180 hectares destroyed from this fire alone, with loss of habitats and release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere slightly more difficult to quantity.

Estimating aboveground carbon stock in forests: Remote sensing

Following on from the last few blog posts, a third technique for estimating aboveground carbon stocks is through remote sensing. Remote sensing has relevance for my project since we are using it to identify cocoa farm typologies at a large (national) scale and I will indirectly use it to classify the carbon stock of those typologies.

Remote sensing and satellite imagery techniques can cover large ages and can be used for landscape classification when combined with secondary spatial information. Broad forest types at the landscape level and even tree dimensions at the plot level can be estimated which can then be converted into biomass using statistical relationships (Brown, 1997; Chave et al., 2005; Saatchi et al., 2011). Remote sensing techniques can broadly be grouped into categories of optical sensing, high-resolution satellite imagery, microwave or radar, and LiDAR. Continue reading “Estimating aboveground carbon stock in forests: Remote sensing”

Estimating aboveground carbon stock in forests: Allometric models

Following on from the last blog post, this post will look at another method for measuring aboveground biomass in forests is through the use of allometric models which relate tree dimensions to biomass. This is a good time to discuss this approach, since I’ve spent the past few days comparing allometric models used in two different regional carbon assessments of cocoa farms in Indonesia. Continue reading “Estimating aboveground carbon stock in forests: Allometric models”

Challenges of remote sensing for mapping plantations

The past week I was helping to compile information and guidance for the Terra-I team to allow them to start mapping the cocoa farms from the polygons they have been given. One of the biggest challenges they will face is distinguishing tree plantations from other vegetation such as secondary forests with a high degree of accuracy. This was backed up by my review of the available literature on this topic on Tuesday.

Spectral confusion (reflectance from vegetation) with native vegetation is a well-known challenge in agroforestry and tree crop systems, particularly in mapping cocoa, shade coffee, oil palm, and evergreen rubber tree plantations. Tree crops are grown using full sun or low shade methods are less likely to be misclassified than when they are grown in densely-shaded agroforest.

Cocoa cultivation systems (source: Jacobi et al., 2013) Continue reading “Challenges of remote sensing for mapping plantations”

Terra-I and land-use change detection

Terra-I detects and monitors land cover change resulting from human activities. It was developed in cooperation with CIAT to provide decision-makers and national and local authorities near real time updates of vegetation loss and deforestation.

Terra-I will be a powerful tool for this research project. My ability to estimate the carbon impact at a national level is largely dependent on the Terra-I team being able to locate and estimate the sizes of cocoa plantations. The exercise will require a visual inspection of satellite imagery to confirm what a typical cocoa farm signature should look like. This information will then be able to be fed back into the system in order to replicate on a large scale.

Below is a short time-lapse video of Terra-I detecting land-use change and deforestation (shown in red) in the Amazon.

Climate change projections for cocoa growing regions

My first week in CIAT started with a meeting to discuss aspects of my project with those who are currently involved with cocoa research in Indonesia. It was interesting to see how my research will fit in with other ongoing or completed studies within CIAT. There are other research projects looking at cocoa in Indonesia at regional scales. For my project I will be working to produce a national level assessment of carbon stocks and carbon footprint of cocoa, bringing together all this regional data.

Now is a good time to offer a comment on climate change impacts on cocoa in Indonesia. Over the next century, South East Asia is predicted to experience increased temperatures, increased variability and intensity of rainfall in particular at higher altitudes, and increased risks of high intensity and frequent extreme weather events such as cyclones and droughts (IPCC, 2014). Climate change is already having an impact on cocoa crop yields in Indonesia (Witjaksono, 2016). Continue reading “Climate change projections for cocoa growing regions”