Monitoring intra and inter annual dynamics of forest degradation from charcoal production in Southern Africa with Sentinel – 2 imagery

The contribution of forest degradation to changes in forest carbon stocks remains poorly quantified and constitutes a main source of uncertainty in the forest carbon budget. Charcoal production is a major source of forest degradation in sub-Saharan Africa. We used multitemporal Sentinel-2 imagery to monitor and quantify forest degradation extent in the main supplying area of a major urban center of southern Africa over a 4-year period. We implemented an indirect approach combining Sentinel-2 imagery to map kiln and field measurements to estimate AGB removals and carbon losses from charcoal production. This work generated 10 m resolution maps of forest degradation extent from charcoal production in the study area at quarterly intervals from 2016–2019. These maps reveal an intense and rapid forest degradation process and expose the spatial and temporal patterns of forest degradation from charcoal production with high detail. The total area under charcoal production over the study period reached 26,647 ha (SD = 320.8) and the forest degradation front advanced 10.5 km in a 4-year period, with an average of 19.4 ha of woodlands degraded daily. By the end of 2019, charcoal production disturbed most mopane stands in the study area and woodland fragmentation increased in 70.4 % of the mopane woodlands. We estimated that charcoal production was responsible for 2,568,761 Mg (SD = 42,130) of aboveground biomass extracted from the forest and 1,284,381 Mg (SD = 21,075) of carbon loss. The magnitude of these figures underlines the relevance of charcoal production as a main cause of forest cover change and remarks the existing uncertainties in the quantification of forest degradation processes. These results illustrate the potential of multitemporal medium resolution imagery to quantify forest degradation in sub-Saharan Africa and improve REDD + Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification systems in compliance with international reporting commitments.