Global Forest Watch Dataset Description
Dataset Overview
This comprehensive dataset provides insights into global forest cover change, carbon fluxes, and deforestation drivers at national and sub-national levels. It includes:
- Tree cover extent and primary forest extent
- Aboveground live woody biomass (AGB) stocks and densities
- Annual tree cover loss (2001-2023)
- Annual tree cover loss by dominant driver
- Annual primary forest loss (2002-2023)
- Annual forest greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
- Average annual forest CO₂ removals (sequestration)
- Average annual net GHG flux
Data Categories
- Country tree cover loss: Hectares of tree cover loss at national level (2001-2023) by canopy cover %
- Country primary loss: Hectares of primary forest loss at national level (2002-2023) at 30% canopy density
- Country carbon data: Aboveground biomass stocks/densities (2000); average annual GHG emissions/removals (2001-2023)
- Country drivers: Tree cover loss by dominant driver (2001-2023) at 30% canopy density
- Subnational data: Similar metrics at first sub-national level (state/province)
Key Methodologies
The data was produced using:
- Tree cover data from University of Maryland's GLAD lab and Google (Hansen et al. 2013)
- Primary forest definition by Turubanova et al. 2018
- Tree cover loss drivers from Curtis et al. 2018
- Carbon densities and fluxes from Harris et al. 2021
Citations
Hansen, M.C., P.V. Potapov, R. Moore, et al. 2013. "High-Resolution Global Maps of 21st-Century Forest Cover Change." Science 342: 850–53.
Turubanova, S., Potapov, P.V., Tyukavina, A. and Hansen, M.C., 2018. Ongoing primary forest loss in Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Indonesia. Environmental Research Letters, 13(7), p.074028.
Harris, N.L., D.A. Gibbs, A. Baccini, et al. 2021. "Global maps of twenty-first century forest carbon fluxes." Nature Climate Change 11: 234-240.
Important Cautions
"Tree cover" includes all vegetation >5m in height (natural forests and plantations). "Loss" indicates removal/mortality and doesn't always equate to deforestation. Emissions and removals data are model outputs with inherent uncertainty. Gross removals and net flux reflect annual averages (2001-2023), not time series trends. Emissions are from stand-replacing disturbances only (not degradation).
Dataset Source
The dataset is sourced from Global Forest Watch. Access the original data here
Libraries Used
- Tableau for visualization
- Pandas for data manipulation
- NumPy for numerical operations
- Matplotlib/Seaborn for additional visualizations
- Geopandas for geospatial analysis