Missing forest cover gains in boreal forests explained

A recent global study reported a net difference between areas of forest cover loss and of forest cover gain of about 3.6% of total forest area across the boreal biome, and of 5.6% for Canada, over a 12-yr period. Net losses of this magnitude should be of concern given the importance of this biome in global biogeochemical cycles linked to climate change. Our analysis for Canada fails to support these results and suggests that post-harvest recovery of tree cover is generally strong, while post-fire recovery of tree cover is weaker but nevertheless prevalent. We find that current large area remote sensing methodologies can fail to properly recognize post-disturbance recovery from non-forest to forest status in low-productivity boreal forests when using short time series. With climate change and human impacts intensifying around the world, it is urgently important to be able to reliably distinguish temporary forest cover loss followed by naturally slow recovery from forest decline requiring policy action. The analysis was in large part based on the new Canada Landsat Disturbance product in which fires and harvest since 1984 are mapped at 30-m resolution (https://doi.org/10.23687/add1346b-f632-4eb9-a83d-a662b38655ad).