Earth observation for Natural Capital Accounting in Liberia
Among African countries, Liberia is one that carried a nation-wide National Capital Accounting exercise. The study was however restricted to its 3 main natural assets, namely:
– The forest cover representing 45% of its entire territory, which is home to several endemic mammal species (of which some are red-listed), namely Liberia’s Chimpanzee.
– The freshwater ecosystem services. Liberia benefits from abundant rainfall, thanks to its forests and requires proper monitoring of water regulation and sediment movement and capture to ensure both supply to its wildlife and population as well as for its hydropower production.
– Its mangrove for their multiple services.
The specificity of this project is that it relied greatly on satellite earth observation, with the participation of the NASA, for its evaluating operations which according to the GEO community (Group for Earth Observation) makes it a cheap and replicable method of natural accounting.
This document from GEO details the methodologies in both capturing and processing.