Thumbnail Image

FRA 2000 on definitions of forest and forest change

Year of publication 2000

Place of publication Rome, Italy ;

Product type Book (stand-alone)

Category Technical book

Edition 1

Synopsis (short abstract) FAO has developed and implemented global terms and definitions of various forest parameters since its first worldwide assessment in 1947. Information presented in FRA Working Paper 1 (FAO 1998) for the current global assessment, FRA 2000, reports on this subject. This paper takes into consideration over 50 years of cumulative experience in FAO working in the field of global forest resources assessments. The terms and definitions applied in FRA 2000 are artificial constructs which help us to unde rstand and describe the world’s forest vegetation, and how it is changing through time. By necessity, the global definitions are compromises, and their application is subject to interpretation. The sheer magnitude and variability of the forest resources information produced by countries, make this so. Moreover, the wide range of forest formations, ecological conditions and forest cover types, which exist on a global scale, make global definitions necessarily broad. One of the major analytical ta sks in a global assessment is to group and classify detailed information from national classifications according to global definitions. For this exercise, there are many cases where assumptions or approximations must be made. For example, in FRA 2000, more than 650 definitions of forest were assembled from 132 developing countries (from 110 independent surveys). Reducing this information into a highly compressed and discrete set of global classes was a major challenge. At the same time, the orig inal classifications are kept in the Forestry Information System (FORIS) making it possible to make alternative interpretations of national data, should this be needed.

Language English

Also available in:
No results found.

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Thumbnail Image
    Book (stand-alone)
    Technical book
    FRA 2000 - Comparison of forest area and forest area change estimates derived from FRA 1990 and FRA 2000 2000
    Also available in:
    No results found.
    The working paper compares the 1990 net forest areas and the figures for net annual forest area change derived from FRA 1990 and FRA 2000. The total 1990 forest area registered by FRA 2000 was found to be 521 million ha or 15.1% larger than the corresponding figure from FRA 1990. This difference owes primarily to change of definitions of forest between the assessments (in particular the lowering of the threshold value for crown density in the industrialized countries from 20 to 10%). The change of forest definitions had the largest impact on the reported forest areas for Australia and the Former USSR. Due to the above, a larger forest area was studied in FRA 2000 compared to FRA 1990. Despite that, the net annual forest area change during the 1990's reported for FRA 2000 was - 9.4 million ha, representing a positive development from the FRA 1990 estimate of - 13.1 million ha during the 1980's. The rate of net forest area loss as reported by FRA has thereby decreased by 3.7 million ha f rom the 1980's to the 1990s. If the FRA 1990 definitions are applied to the data for the 1990s, the slowing net deforestation trend at the global level is further enhanced.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Document
    Other document
    FRA 2000 - Pan-tropical survey of forest cover changes 1980-2000 - Results and findings 2002
    Also available in:
    No results found.
    The results from the FRA 2000 Remote Sensing Survey cover most of pan-tropical forests under a wide range of ecological conditions, from tropical rainforests to dry forests. Estimates were calculated at different levels: at sampling unit, stratum, sub-regional, regional, pan-tropical levels and at ecological zones level. The reliability of the estimates differs according to the study level. The survey was mainly designed for generating information with an acceptable statistical precision at the regional and pan-tropical levels. Estimates at the subregional level have a relatively low precision but give valuable indications on forest changes processes.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Document
    Other document
    FRA 2000 - Pan-tropical survey of forest cover changes 1980-2000.
    Remote Sensing Survey of Forest Cover Changes 1980-2000
    2002
    Also available in:
    No results found.
    The FRA 2000 estimates of forest area and change are largely based on national statistics and inventory reports, which contain detailed information on the forests of individual countries. However, differences among data sets from the various countries can be great owing to the methods applied, the terms and definitions employed and the currency of the information in the individual inventories. Despite adjustments made to accommodate these differences, uncertainties can still arise when statistic s from different countries are compared, especially those relating to forest change.
Show more

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

No results found.