The perils of misusing remote sensing data: The case of forest cover

Leopoldo Fergusson, Santiago Saavedra and Juan Vargas

Working papers from Red Investigadores de Economía

Abstract: Research on deforestation has grown exponentially due to the availability of satellite-based measures of forest cover. One of the most popular is Global Forest Change (GFC). Using GFC, we estimate that the Colombian civil conflict increases ‘forest cover’. Using an alternative source that validates the same remote sensing images in the ground, we find the opposite effect. This occurs because, in spite of its name, GFC measures tree cover, including vegetation other than native forest. Most users of GFC seem unaware of this. In our case, most of the conflicting results are explained by GFC’s misclassification of oil palm crops as ‘forest’. Our findings call for caution when using automated classification of imagery for specific research questions.

Keywords: Forest Cover; Conflict; Measurement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 Q23 Q34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 21
Date: 2020-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-big and nep-env
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Related works:
Working Paper: The perils of misusing remote sensing data. The case of forest cover (2020)
Working Paper: The perils of misusing remote sensing data: The case of forest cover (2020)
Working Paper: The perils of misusing remote sensing data: The case of forest cover (2020)
Working Paper: The perils of misusing remote sensing data The case of forest cover (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rie:riecdt:41

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