IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/col/000518/018152.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

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

Author

Listed:
  • Leopoldo Fergusson
  • Santiago Saavedra
  • Juan F. Vargas

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Leopoldo Fergusson & Santiago Saavedra & Juan F. Vargas, 2020. "The perils of misusing remote sensing data: The case of forest cover," Documentos de Trabajo 18152, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA).
    • Handle: RePEc:col:000518:018152
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://vox.lacea.org/files/Working_Papers/lacea_wps_0043_fergusson_saavedra_vargas.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chervier, Colas & Costedoat, Sébastien, 2017. "Heterogeneous Impact of a Collective Payment for Environmental Services Scheme on Reducing Deforestation in Cambodia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 148-159.
    2. Cunha, Felipe Arias Fogliano de Souza & Börner, Jan & Wunder, Sven & Cosenza, Carlos Alberto Nunes & Lucena, André F.P., 2016. "The implementation costs of forest conservation policies in Brazil," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 209-220.
    3. Jorge Restrepo & Michael Spagat & Juan Vargas, 2004. "The Dynamics of the Columbian Civil Conflict: A New Dataset," Homo Oeconomicus, Institute of SocioEconomics, vol. 21, pages 396-429.
    4. Gallemore, Caleb & Jespersen, Kristjan, 2016. "Transnational Markets for Sustainable Development Governance: The Case of REDD+," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 79-94.
    5. Gibson, John, 2018. "Forest Loss and Economic Inequality in the Solomon Islands: Using Small-Area Estimation to Link Environmental Change to Welfare Outcomes," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 66-76.
    6. Blackman, Allen & Goff, Leonard & Rivera Planter, Marisol, 2018. "Does eco-certification stem tropical deforestation? Forest Stewardship Council certification in Mexico," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 306-333.
    7. Jung, Suhyun & Polasky, Stephen, 2018. "Partnerships to prevent deforestation in the Amazon," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 498-516.
    8. Jennifer M. Alix-Garcia & Katharine R. E. Sims & Patricia Yañez-Pagans, 2015. "Only One Tree from Each Seed? Environmental Effectiveness and Poverty Alleviation in Mexico's Payments for Ecosystem Services Program," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 1-40, November.
    9. Damania, Richard & Russ, Jason & Wheeler, David & Barra, Alvaro Federico, 2018. "The Road to Growth: Measuring the Tradeoffs between Economic Growth and Ecological Destruction," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 351-376.
    10. Song, Xiao-Peng, 2018. "Global Estimates of Ecosystem Service Value and Change: Taking Into Account Uncertainties in Satellite-based Land Cover Data," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 227-235.
    11. Cook, Nathan J. & Wright, Glenn D. & Andersson, Krister P., 2017. "Local Politics of Forest Governance: Why NGO Support Can Reduce Local Government Responsiveness," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 203-214.
    12. Julia Berazneva & Tanya S. Byker, 2017. "Does Forest Loss Increase Human Disease? Evidence from Nigeria," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 516-521, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shang Xu & H. Allen Klaiber & Daniela A. Miteva, 2023. "Impacts of forest conservation on local agricultural labor supply: Evidence from the Indonesian forest moratorium," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 105(3), pages 940-965, May.
    2. Isabelle Chort & Berk Öktem, 2024. "Agricultural shocks, coping policies and deforestation: Evidence from the coffee leaf rust epidemic in Mexico," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 106(3), pages 1020-1057, May.
    3. Bhattacharjee, Arnab & Aravena, Claudia & Castillo, Natalia & Ehrlich, Marco & Taou, Nadia & Wagner, Thomas, 2022. "Agroforestry Programs in the Colombian Amazon: Selection, Treatment and Exposure Effects on Deforestation," National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) Discussion Papers 537, National Institute of Economic and Social Research.
    4. Ito, Junichi & Feuer, Hart N. & Kitano, Shinichi & Asahi, Haruka, 2019. "Assessing the effectiveness of Japan's community-based direct payment scheme for hilly and mountainous areas," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 62-75.
    5. Naime, Julia & Angelsen, Arild & Rodriguez-Ward, Dawn & Sills, Erin O., 2024. "Participation, anticipation effects and impact perceptions of two collective incentive-based conservation interventions in Ucayali, Peru," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    6. Fuentes Cordoba, Gabriel, 2024. "Deforestation and child health in Cambodia," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    7. Brandt, Jodi S. & Nolte, Christoph & Agrawal, Arun, 2018. "Deforestation and timber production in Congo after implementation of sustainable management policy: A response to Karsenty et al. (2017)," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 375-378.
    8. Rico-Straffon, Jimena & Wang, Zhenhua & Panlasigui, Stephanie & Loucks, Colby J. & Swenson, Jennifer & Pfaff, Alexander, 2023. "Forest concessions and eco-certifications in the Peruvian Amazon: Deforestation impacts of logging rights and logging restrictions," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    9. Salemi, Colette, 2021. "Refugee camps and deforestation in Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    10. Ibrahim Ari & Muammer Koc, 2018. "Sustainable Financing for Sustainable Development: Understanding the Interrelations between Public Investment and Sovereign Debt," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-25, October.
    11. Sims, Katharine R.E. & Alix-Garcia, Jennifer M., 2017. "Parks versus PES: Evaluating direct and incentive-based land conservation in Mexico," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 8-28.
    12. Chang, Hung-Hao & Lee, Brian & Hsieh, Yi-Ting, 2021. "Participation in afforestation programs and the distribution of forest farm income," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    13. Wilfredo L. Maldonado & Jessica A. Barbosa, 2023. "Determinants of Agricultural Fires: An Aggregative Games Approach," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2023_12, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    14. Leopoldo Fergussony Dario Romeroz Juan F. Vargas, 2013. "The environmental impact of civil conflict The deforestation effect of paramilitary expansion in Colombia," Working Papers 201359, Latin American and Caribbean Environmental Economics Program, revised Dec 2013.
    15. Driss Ezzine-de-Blas & Céline Dutilly & José-Alberto Lara-Pulido & Gwenolé Le Velly & Alejando Guevara-Sanginés, 2016. "Payments for Environmental Services in a Policymix: Spatial and Temporal Articulation in Mexico," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(4), pages 1-15, April.
    16. Tilman Br�ck & Patricia Justino & Philip Verwimp & Andrew Tedesco & Alexandra Avdeenko, 2013. "Measuring Conflict Exposure in Micro-Level Surveys," HiCN Working Papers 153, Households in Conflict Network.
    17. Chervier, Colas & Le Velly, Gwenolé & Ezzine-de-Blas, Driss, 2019. "When the Implementation of Payments for Biodiversity Conservation Leads to Motivation Crowding-out: A Case Study From the Cardamoms Forests, Cambodia," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 499-510.
    18. Alexander Cotte Poveda, 2012. "Estimating Effectiveness of the Control of Violence and Socioeconomic Development in Colombia: An Application of Dynamic Data Envelopment Analysis and Data Panel Approach," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 105(3), pages 343-366, February.
    19. Bird, Julia & Straub, Stéphane, 2020. "The Brasília experiment: The heterogeneous impact of road access on spatial development in Brazil," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    20. Yokessa, Maïmouna & Marette, Stéphan, 2019. "A Review of Eco-labels and their Economic Impact," International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, now publishers, vol. 13(1-2), pages 119-163, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Forest Cover; Conflict; Measurement;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • Q23 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Forestry
    • Q34 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - Natural Resources and Domestic and International Conflicts

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:col:000518:018152. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LACEA (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/laceaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.