Cal Madow Mountain Range, Somalia

Northern Somalia’s Cal Madow mountain range is pictured in this image from Japan’s ALOS satellite.

In contrast to the sparsely-vegetated majority of the country – typical of its semi-arid to arid climate – the mountain range is densely forested. In this image, the vegetated areas appear much darker.

The ecologically diverse region is home to a number of endemic plants species, as well as many rare animals. Unfortunately, the area lacks proper conservation and is threatened by deforestation and intensive livestock grazing.

The uplifted plateau to the south has the distinct pattern of water erosion from rivers and streams making their way towards the edges of the cliffs, before cascading down. There are numerous perennial and persistent waterfalls in this region.

In some areas, we can see where water continues to flow north across the coastal plain towards the Gulf of Aden (not pictured).

The Japanese Advanced Land Observation Satellite captured this image on 2 January 2011. ALOS was supported as a Third Party Mission, which means that ESA used its multi-mission ground systems to acquire, process, distribute and archive data from the satellite to its user community.

In April 2011 the satellite abruptly lost power while mapping Japan’s tsunami-hit coastline.

This image is featured on the Earth from Space video program.

Image credit: JAXA/ESA

Deforestation in Brazil

False color Proba-V image from 4 February 2014 showing deforestation in Brazil.

Image credit: ESA/VITO

Note: For a similar image showing deforestation in Argentina, click here.

Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

This false-color image from Japan’s ALOS satellite was acquired over part of southern Kenya and the border with Tanzania.

Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania can be seen in the lower-left corner. At 5895 m above sea level, this dormant volcano is Africa’s highest mountain.

Kilimanjaro is a critical water catchment area for both Kenya and Tanzania, but over the past century more than 80% of its ice cover – which acts as a water storage – has disappeared. The receding ice cap together with deforestation have caused several rivers to dry up, affecting forests and farmland below.

In this image, bright red areas show the rich vegetation of the forested area on the slopes of Kilimanjaro, as well as vegetation of the agricultural areas and along rivers and streams.

False color allows for better discrimination between different vegetation types. This is particularly helpful when satellite data are used in agricultural monitoring for mapping and classifying land use, crop type, crop health, change detection, irrigated landscape mapping and crop area mapping.

The upper section of the image is dominated by plains in southern Kenya. Nearby are a number of national parks (not shown) that attract tourists looking to see the wildlife. Animals found in this area include elephants, cape buffalo, lion, giraffe, zebra and wildebeest, among many others.

This image, also featured in the Earth from Space video program, was acquired on 20 March 2009.

Image credit: JAXA/ESA

Amazon River

This Kompsat-2 image, acquired on 6 July 2012, shows the Amazon River in the heart of northern Brazil’s rainforest. The false color makes land vegetation appear pink, while water appears green and dark blue. In the upper-right corner, we can see some sparse clouds. The shades of pink vary – the bolder color representing thick vegetation with lighter pink showing where trees were possibly cut down. In fact, in the upper-left portion of the image, there’s a clear line between the two shades, showing where vegetation was cut. The white dots show man-made structures. With their unique view from space, Earth observation satellites have been instrumental in highlighting the vulnerability of the rainforests by documenting the scale of deforestation.

This image is featured on the Earth from Space video program.

Image credit: KARI/ESA

Democratic Republic of Congo

An area in the northwest of the Democratic Republic of Congo is pictured in this image taken on 26 June 2011 by the French SPOT-4 satellite. Most of the lighter green areas are deforested, while the darker green are areas of dense – and possibly natural – vegetation. The lines cutting through the image are roads, many with structures built along them. Clusters of purple dots are larger settlements. A river snakes through the upper part of the image and below it there appears to be a square in light green. Judging by the precision of the outline, we can deduce that this is a patch of land that was either intentionally spared from deforestation or has been reforested.

This image is featured on the Earth from Space video program.

Photo credit: CNES/Spot Image/ESA

Note: The ESA has recently started to provide their best photographs in TIF format only. I personally converted this image to JPG format so that I could share it on this blog.

The Brazil-Bolivia Border

The river-delineated border between western Brazil's Acre province (upper left), and northwestern Bolivia's Pando Department (lower right), demarcates a remarkable difference in land use and development practices. Brazil has opened up this part of the rain forest to farming and settlement, producing the herringbone pattern of forest cutting. This part of Bolivia, on the other hand, preserves its native rain forest, untouched by development. The image was acquired July 2, 2008, covers an area of 42 by 45 km, and is located at 10.3 degrees south latitude, 67.2 degrees west longitude.

Image credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team

Deforestation of the Amazon Rain Forest

This animation shows deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest in the western Brazilian state of Rondônia from 1986 to 2010. While the central area remains green and untouched, squares of light green and brown pop up over time as the forest is cut away.

The animation was created using two cloud-free images: the first from NASA’s Landsat mission in 1986, and the second from the Spanish Deimos mission in 2010. The changes over time were simulated by referring to other satellite data acquired during the 24 years between the two images.

Video credit: ESA/USGS/Deimos Imaging; text credit: ESA/USGS/Deimos Imaging

New Estimate of Gross Carbon Emissions From Tropical Deforestation

Distribution of annual carbon emissions from gross forest cover loss between 2000 and 2005 mapped at a spatial resolution of 11.5 miles (18.5 kilometers).

Image credit: Winrock International

Note: For more information, see Study Slashes Deforestation Carbon Emission Estimate.