The Amazon basin contains vast using airborne Light Detection and This new approach yields an

amounts of carbon, but spatial Ranging (LiDAR); estimated 397.6 million tonnes of
variation in forest conditions and aboveground carbon throughout
carbon density (Mg ha-1) challenges forests of southern Madre de Dios.
national and sub-national Reduced forest cover and carbon
participation in the UNFCCC program density from natural sources, human
to reduce deforestation and forest deforestation and forest degradation
degradation (REDD). Managers of mapped by CLASlite and LiDAR shows
forested land can increase their that regional carbon stocks are 32.4%
carbon credits via detailed monitoring lower than the mean Tier-I estimate
of forest cover, loss and gain derived from the IPCC Good Practice
(hectares), and periodic estimates of Guidelines (2006). The new carbon
changes in forest carbon density. maps show localized areas of higher
carbon stocks in some forests than
The Carnegie Institution for Science, in
predicted from global mapping
collaboration with the Peruvian
approaches, but there are also
Ministry of Environment (MINAM),
widespread reductions in biomass
the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and
attributable to recent deforestation
the Amazon Conservation Association
and degradation that was previously
(ACA), present an integrated satellite-
undetected without high-resolution
airborne mapping approach for high-
satellite and airborne LiDAR
resolution carbon stock assessment
techniques.
and monitoring in tropical forest
regions. While the IPCC Tier-I estimates report
an uncertainty of 90% or more and do
In September 2009, the new method (iii) Conversion of LiDAR structural not resolve the natural and human-
was successfully tested on 4,300,500 data to aboveground carbon density driven variation in carbon density, this
hectares of lowland Amazon forest in using LiDAR-carbon metrics with a demonstration has an uncertainty of
the municipality of Madre de Dios, tactical use of field calibration plots; 10% and resolves detailed spatial
Peru. The demonstration provided
(iv) Integration of the satellite maps variation in carbon stocks at high
estimates of aboveground carbon
with the airborne LiDAR data to set a spatial resolution.
density at a spatial resolution of 30
meters, making it one of the largest regional, high resolution baseline
high-resolution biomass mapping carbon estimate.
studies in the world.
The new approach involves four steps
undertaken in concert to produce a
rapid high resolution forest carbon
assessment:
(i) Mapping of forest cover,
deforestation and degradation
history using freely available
satellite data and Carnegie
Landsat Analysis System-lite
(CLASlite).
(ii) Large-area mapping of
forest canopy three-
dimensional structure

For more information, visit us at http://claslite.ciw.edu

The Peru REDD Demo is a collaboration between the Carnegie Institution for Science,
Peruvian Ministry of Environment, World Wildlife Fund, and the Amazon Conservation Association.
Funding provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Government of Norway.
High-resolution forest carbon
monitoring is currently considered
technically challenging, potentially
labor-intensive and thus an expensive
undertaking. Carnegie, WWF, MINAM
and ACA demonstrate that a
combination of free satellite
monitoring technology with an
affordable level of aircraft-based
LiDAR mapping can provide spatially-
resolved, regional biomass estimates
that will improve the monitoring of
carbon stocks, losses and recovery in
forests over time.
Rapid advances and decreasing costs
in the satellite and airborne mapping
sectors are already making high-
resolution carbon stock and emissions
assessments viable anywhere in the
Amazon.
While Carnegie and its partners work
to produce the most relevant science,
the ultimate aim is facilitating this
new science to support informed
forest decision-making. Carnegie’s
capacity-building program focuses on
the provisioning, strategic training and
support of scientific methods tailored
to respond to the needs of
government and non-government
organizations. This example from
Madre de Dios, Peru demonstrates
that commitment. Institutional
partnerships, from the science,
governmental and non-governmental
sectors, were developed and
strengthened through the process to
complete a ground-breaking
experience both scientifically and
institutionally.

Aboveground carbon storage in 4,300,500 hectares of the Peruvian Amazon at 30 meter spatial resolution

For more information, visit us at http://claslite.ciw.edu

The Peru REDD Demo is a collaboration between the Carnegie Institution for Science,
Peruvian Ministry of Environment, World Wildlife Fund, and the Amazon Conservation Association.
Funding provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Government of Norway.