Armenia's forest area calculated
ArmInfo
Armenia's forest area has finally been calculated. The calculations have been made following the discrepancy between NASA's satellite images saying that woods make up 11% of Armenia's territory and the data provided by local environmentalists - 7%.
The survey has been carried out by the Armenian Monitoring Center with the support of GIZ (the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit): the center has been provided by computers and space data for 2011, with its personnel trained by German specialists.
Senior expert of GIZ bio-diversity program Ayser Kazaryan says that according to the latest data Armenia's forests cover an area of 332,333 h or 11.1% of the country's territory. Due to the lack of unified calculation methodology, the data received so far are quite controversial: in 1978 the index was 296,600 h, or 9.89%, in 1993 – 334,100 h (9.8%), in 1995 - 300,000 h (11.2%), in 2000, according to Landsat ETM+ - 246,099 h (8.2%), in 2001, according to UNEP - 239,600 h (8.1%), in 2007, according to FAO - 283,000 (9.5%).
Kazaryan said that the survey has detected yet unregistered forests - an additional area of 22,908 h. Meanwhile, US experts say that by 2020 Armenia may lose all of its woods.
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