NASA and Russian scientists observe land-cover and land-use change and carbon in Russian forests

Abstract

In 1997, several project teams of the NASA Land-Cover Land-Use Change Program began working with Russian organizations to try to quantify and understand the past, present, and future land-cover and land-use trends in Russian boreal forests. Selected results of completed and ongoing research projects are discussed in four categories: forest dynamics, fire and fire behaviour, carbon budgets, and new remote sensing analysis methods. This research has helped pave the way for collaborations with international organizations and other networks, and collaborations at several scales are now making it possible for Russian and US scientists to work together to further our knowledge on the influence of land-cover and land-use change throughout the world.