A strategy for mapping Canada's Forest biomass with Landsat TM imagery

Estimates of forest biomass are needed to meet Canada's international reporting requirements and to provide important inputs for global change, carbon accounting, and forest productivity models. The Canadian Forest Service, in cooperation with the Canadian Space Agency, has developed a strategy for mapping Canada's forest biomass as part of the Earth Observation for Sustainable Development of Forests (EOSD) Project. The strategy includes: (i) development of a biomass mapping method, (ii) regional expansion of the method, and (iii) national implementation. The method estimates forest biomass at the forest management stand level using forest cover type and structure information extracted from Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data. Regional expansion of the method has occurred over several pilot regions that represent a range of forest ecosystems across Canada. Validation of regional products provides an indication of the precision of the method, defines the data requirements and limits to regional expansion, and has led to the development of research themes. Specific research themes address known limitations of the method by (i) improving the extraction of cover type and structure information from satellite imagery, (ii) defining the role of environmental variables and other factors for biomass estimation, and (iii) separating understorey and overstorey biomass.