GISTDA-SilvaCarbon Workshop

The 2023 CEOS Chair, the Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA) of Thailand, invites the CEOS community to a workshop in Thailand on incorporating global AFOLU (Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use) datasets into national inventory and reporting processes. This forms part of their CEOS Chair priority on providing support for the Global Stocktake of the Paris Agreement (GST). Working with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) via the SilvaCarbon program and with the support of CEOS, the workshop will be hosted from February 22 – March 2, 2023, in Chanthaburi Province and Khao Yai National Park, Thailand. CEOS Agency representatives active in the field of AFOLU, particularly around calibration, validation, and the application of Earth observation for forest inventories and national reporting, are encouraged to attend.

SilvaCarbon is a strategic program of the US government that aims to provide technical assistance for countries that have joined the REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries) initiative. Supported by the US Geological Survey (USGS) and USAID (US Agency for International Development), SilvaCarbon is working towards building National Forest Monitoring Systems. The SilvaCarbon program goal is to increase capacity to monitor changes in critical ecosystems, leading to better management and protection of forests.

The GISTDA – USGS SilvaCarbon Workshop has the broad objective of better connecting Southeast Asian national forest inventory agencies with CEOS Agencies to improve the uptake of EO datasets. Country-level calibration, validation, and assessment of global products are critical steps on the pathway to uptake of global EO datasets. Additional goals of the workshop include capacity building for conducting mangrove forest inventories and exploring opportunities to improve emission factors using space-based LiDAR data.

The workshop includes a series of lectures and presentations on topics relating to national forest inventories, including biomass calculation models, data processing, mangrove carbon accounting methods, uncertainty calculations, global mangrove mapping and integration of space-based and ground data. Speakers include Pakorn Apaphant (GISTDA, CEOS Chair), Osamu Ochiai (JAXA), Eric Bullock (US Forest Service), Neha Hunka (University of Maryland), Pontus Olofsson (NASA), Carly Green (Environmental Accounting Services), Maybeleen Apwong (University of Hawaii at Hilo/US Forest Service), Lola Fatoyinbo (NASA), Marc Simard (UCLA/NASA), Erik Linquist (SEPAL), Paul Berkowitz (University of Hawaii at Hilo/USGS) and Sylvia Wilson (USGS).

There are also a number of hands-on activities, including two field days: a visit to a montane rainforest in Khao Yai National Park on February 24, and a mangrove forest in Chanthaburi on February 27. These field days provide an opportunity to explore the relationships and synergies between ground-based and spaceborne datasets. The core days of the workshop will be preceded by a high-level seminar with executives from Thai government, industry and academic sectors in Bangkok on Wednesday, February 22. 

Any CEOS Agency representatives interested in attending are invited to contact the organising team by emailing Sylvia Wilson at snwilson@usgs.gov.