Quantifying forest cover loss in Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2000–2010, with Landsat ETM + data Peter V. Potapov a, ⁎, Svetlana A. Turubanova a , Matthew C. Hansen a , Bernard Adusei a , Mark Broich a , Alice Altstatt b , Landing Mane c , Christopher O. Justice b a Geographic Information Science Center of Excellence, South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD 57007, USA b University of Maryland College Park, Department of Geography, College Park, MD 20742, USA c Observatoire Satellital des Forêts d'Afrique Centrale (OSFAC), Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo abstract article info Article history: Received 2 May 2011 Received in revised form 27 July 2011 Accepted 6 August 2011 Available online xxxx Keywords: Forest cover Forest cover loss Landsat Congo Forest cover and forest cover loss for the last decade, 2000–2010, have been quantified for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) using Landsat time-series data set. This was made possible via an exhaustive mining of the Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM +) archive. A total of 8881 images were processed to create multi-temporal image metrics resulting in 99.6% of the DRC land area covered by cloud-free Landsat observations. To facilitate image compositing, a top-of-atmosphere (TOA) reflectance calibration and image normalization using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) top of canopy (TOC) reflectance data sets were performed. Mapping and change detection was implemented using a classification tree algorithm. The national year 2000 forest cover was estimated to be 159,529.2 thou- sand hectares, with gross forest cover loss for the last decade totaling 2.3% of forest area. Forest cover loss area increased by 13.8% between the 2000–2005 and 2005–2010 intervals, with the greatest increase occur- ring within primary humid tropical forests. Forest loss intensity was distributed unevenly and associated with areas of high population density and mining activity. While forest cover loss is comparatively low in protected areas and priority conservation landscapes compared to forests outside of such areas, gross forest cover loss for all nature protection areas increased by 64% over the 2000 to 2005 and 2005 to 2010 intervals. © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Tropical forests serve as a major carbon pool, storing the largest amount of carbon in living biomass of all terrestrial biomes (IPCC, 2000). Tropical forests are also the largest terrestrial reservoir of bio- logical diversity, and provide a number of other important ecosystem services in shaping the human environment of tropical countries. The humid forests of Central Africa feature the second largest continuous tropical forest massif in the world, about half of which is located within the boundaries of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Com- pared to other countries within Central Africa, the DRC features the high- est area of annual forest cover loss (FAO, 2010). Forest cover loss intensity is a function of high population density (second highest in Central Africa after Cameroon) and the highest population growth rate within the region (CBFP, 2009). On the other hand, forest cover loss in the DRC is considerably less than other humid tropical countries such as Brazil or Indonesia (FAO, 2010; Hansen et al., 2010). DRC's relatively low forest loss can be explained by a lack of intensive industrial agricul- ture or forestry. Years of civil war and economic instability have hindered agro-industrial investment and development. The rural population of the country relies mainly on slash-and-burn subsistence agriculture tech- niques, and the timber harvest volumes (as of year 2007) within the DRC were the lowest compared to other Central African nations (CBFP, 2009). While forest cover loss within the DRC is moderate, it is spatially per- vasive. The expansion of human populations into previously intact areas, followed by forest fragmentation, forest conversion for slash-and-burn agriculture, mining operations, charcoal production, and poaching all deleteriously impact DRC's forest resources and the future sustainability of forest ecosystem services. The quantification of forest cover extent and change at the national scale is valuable for forest resource management, land use planning and conservation monitoring. However, such informa- tion is sparse or lacking for the DRC. Satellite imagery are the only viable data source currently available for the quantification of forest cover and loss within the DRC, given the vast extent of intact forest landscapes, lack of transportation infrastructure and political instability which limit data collection and forest mapping on the ground. An additional advantage of satellite monitoring is its independence from national administrations, allowing open publication of the mapping and monitoring results. This enhances overall transparency of forest information as it is immediately available to civil society, private industry and governments in support of science, conservation and other forest resource assessment and Remote Sensing of Environment xxx (2012) xxx–xxx ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: peter.potapov@hermes.geog.umd.edu (P.V. Potapov). RSE-08192; No of Pages 11 0034-4257/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.rse.2011.08.027 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Remote Sensing of Environment journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rse Please cite this article as: Potapov, P.V., et al., Quantifying forest cover loss in Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2000–2010, with Landsat ETM+ data, Remote Sensing of Environment (2012), doi:10.1016/j.rse.2011.08.027