Remote Sensing and the Kyoto Protocol: Focus on Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry

The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations FrameworkConvention on Climate Change (Kyoto Protocol) is oneof the most outstanding and ambitious environmentalprogrammes so far, established for reducinggreenhouse gases to prevent anthropogenic climatechange. Changes in land-use and forestry have a greatimpact on the greenhouse gas balance, andparticipating countries are obliged to monitor andreport the status of their inventories. Remotesensing is, amongst others, a valuable technique forreporting in the sector ¿¿¿Land Use, Land-Use Changeand Forestry¿¿¿ (LULUCF). The author introduces thesubject by explaining basic terms and definitions ofthe Kyoto Protocol, and examines the usage of remotesensing in forest inventories, with a specialemphasis on the situation in Austria. After anin-depth review of official documentation of theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),like ¿¿¿The Good Practice Guidance for Land Use,Land-Use Change and Forestry¿¿¿, the author presentsrecent and future trends in remote sensing. This bookwill be of interest to researchers and practitionersin the field of remote sensing, geography, forestry,and environmental sciences.

MSc degree in Environmental SystemSciences-Geography from the University of Graz, Austria.Currently Ph.D. student at the Institute of Photogrammetry andRemote Sensing, Vienna University of Technology. His researchinterests are bio- and geophysical parameter retrieval from radardata, scaling issues and data assimilation.