Comment on gebhardt et al. MAD-MEX automatic wall-to-wall land cover monitoring for the mexican REDD-MRV program using all landsat data
Gebhardt et al. (2014) presented the Monitoring Activity Data for the Mexican REDD+ program (MAD-MEX), an automatic nation-wide land cover monitoring system for the Mexican REDD+ MRV. Though MAD-MEX represents a valuable first effort toward establishing a national reference emissions level for the implementation of REDD+ in Mexico, in this paper, we argue that this land cover system has important limitations that may prevent it from becoming operational for REDD+ MRV. Specifically, we show that (1) the accuracy assessment of MAD-MEX land cover maps is optimistically biased; (2) the ability of MAD-MEX to monitor land cover change, including deforestation and forest degradation; is poor and (3) the use of an entirely automatic classification approach, such as that followed by MAD-MEX, is highly problematic in the case of a large and heterogeneous country like Mexico. We discuss these limitations and call into question the ability of a land cover monitoring system, such as MAD-MEX, both to elaborate a national reference emissions level and to monitor future forest cover change, as part of a REDD+ MRV system. We provide some insights with the aim of improving the development of nation-wide land cover monitoring systems in Mexico and elsewhere.
Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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Format: | Texto biblioteca |
Language: | eng |
Subjects: | Reducción de Emisiones por Deforestación y Degradación Forestal, Cobertura de suelos, Deforestación, Degradación del suelo, Monitoreo ambiental, |
Online Access: | http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/8/7/533 |
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