Remote Sensing and the Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (Kyoto Protocol) is one of the most outstanding and ambitious environmental programmes so far, established for reducing greenhouse gases to prevent anthropogenic climate change. Changes in land-use and forestry have a great impact on the greenhouse gas balance, and participating countries are obliged to monitor and report the status of their inventories. Remote sensing is, amongst others, a valuable technique for reporting in the sector ‘Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry’ (LULUCF). The author introduces the subject by explaining basic terms and definitions of the Kyoto Protocol, and examines the usage of remote sensing in forest inventories, with a special emphasis on the situation in Austria. After an in-depth review of official documentation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), like ‘The Good Practice Guidance for Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry’, the author presents recent and future trends in remote sensing. This book will be of interest to researchers and practitioners in the field of remote sensing, geography, forestry, and environmental sciences.