Abstract
Context
Tropical forests in mainland Southeast (MSEA) have important conservation values and provide critical ecosystem functioning and services. With climate change and increasing anthropogenic activities, these forests can be lost to other land use types or degraded.
Objectives
We aim to understand how these forests have changed under the context of MSEA’s rapidly changing physical and socioeconomic environments in recent decades.
Methods
We employed satellite-derived tree cover products, primarily the MODIS-based Vegetation continuous field (VCF) data, to investigate changes in forest cover with a focus on potential forest degradation to savannah since 2000 for the four MSEA countries, i.e., Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.
Results
We found an overall increasing trend of savannah (defined as places with tree cover between 10 and 55%) during the period 2000–2020. However, the sources of the increased savannah area differed significantly between 2000–2009 and 2009–2020: In the earlier decade, the positive trend of the savannah area was primarily attributed to tree regeneration from grasslands; while during the more recent decade, the degradation (savannization) of forests was the major cause. Fire disturbance primarily controlled interannual variation in tree cover for the savannah gain during the period of 2000–2009, while high atmospheric water demand drove the degradation of forests during the period of 2010–2020.
Conclusions
Our analysis sheds light on the understanding of changing forest landscapes in a globally important region of tropical forests, which is critical for informing land management and tropical forest protection.
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The study was supported by a US Department of Energy grant (DE-SC0022074).
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AC designed the study. MW did the analysis, wrote the draft, and prepared the figures. All authors reviewed and edited the manuscript.
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Wang, M., Guo, Q. & Chen, A. The savannization of tropical forests in mainland Southeast Asia since 2000. Landsc Ecol 38, 3961–3971 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-023-01691-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-023-01691-1