2023-05-04T13:11:58.897447

2025-05-21T22:16:49.614019

30

30 m

Global

Annual

global

Harris et al. (2021). Global maps of 21st century forest carbon fluxes. Accessed on [date] from Global Forest Watch.

Forest greenhouse gas net flux

(2001-2024, 30m, Harris et al. 2021, Gibbs et al. 2025)

Harris, N.L., D.A. Gibbs, A. Baccini, R.A. Birdsey, S. de Bruin, M. Farina, L. Fatoyinbo, M.C. Hansen, M. Herold, R.A. Houghton, P.V. Potapov, D. Requena Suarez, R.M. Roman-Cuesta, S.S. Saatchi, C.M. Slay, S.A. Turubanova, A. Tyukavina. 2021. Global maps of twenty-first century forest carbon fluxes. Nature Climate Change. [https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-00976-6](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-00976-6)<br><br>Gibbs, D. A., Rose, M., Grassi, G., Melo, J., Rossi, S., Heinrich, V., & Harris, N. L. 2025. Revised and updated geospatial monitoring of 21st century forest carbon fluxes. Earth System Science Data. [https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-1217-2025](https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-1217-2025)

[CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

English

This net flux layer is part of the forest greenhouse gas flux model described in [Harris et al. (2021)](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-00976-6). This paper introduces a geospatial monitoring framework for estimating global forest fluxes which can assist a variety of actors and organizations with tracking greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes from forests and in decreasing emissions or increasing removals by forests. Net forest flux represents the exchange of GHGs between forests and the atmosphere, calculated as the difference between GHGs emitted by forests and carbon removed by (or sequestered by) forests during the model period. Net carbon flux is calculated by subtracting average gross removals from annual gross emissions in each forested pixel; negative values are where forests were net sinks of carbon and positive values are where forests were net sources of GHGs between 2001 and 2024. Net fluxes are calculated following IPCC Guidelines for [national greenhouse gas inventories](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/2019-refinement-to-the-2006-ipcc-guidelines-for-national-greenhouse-gas-inventories/) in each pixel where forests existed in 2000 or were established between 2000 and 2020 according to [Potapov et al. 2022](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2022.856903/full). This layer reflects the cumulative net flux during the model period (2001-2024) and must be divided by 24 to obtain average annual net flux; net flux values cannot be assigned to individual years of the model. All input layers were resampled to a common resolution of 0.00025 x 0.00025 degrees each to match [Hansen et al. (2013)](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1244693).<br><br>We have made several updates to the model since its [original release](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-00976-6). For documentation through the current version, please refer to [this blog](https://www.globalforestwatch.org/blog/data-and-tools/whats-new-carbon-flux-monitoring/). For a more detailed description of the changes included through the 2023 tree cover loss launch (released spring 2024) and a comparison of the model's fluxes with those from the Global Carbon Budget and national greenhouse gas inventories, please refer to [Gibbs et al. (2025)](https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-1217-2025).<br><br>Net flux is available for download in two different area units over the model duration: 1) megagrams of CO2e emissions/ha, and 2) megagrams of CO2e emissions/pixel. The first is appropriate for visualizing (mapping) net flux because it represents the density of GHG fluxes per hectare. The second is appropriate for calculating the net flux in an area of interest (AOI) because the values of the pixels in the AOI can be summed to obtain the total net flux for that area. The values in the latter were calculated by adjusting the net flux per hectare by the size of each pixel, which varies by latitude. When estimating net flux occurring over a defined number of years between 2001 and 2024, divide the values by the model duration and then multiply by the number of years in the period of interest. Both datasets only include pixels within forests, as defined in the methods of Harris et al. (2021) and updated with tree cover gain through 2020.<br><br>Download data from [here](https://data.globalforestwatch.org/datasets/forest-greenhouse-gas-net-flux).

Displays the net flux of greenhouse gases from forests, calculated as the difference between gross forest greenhouse gas emissions from stand-replacing forest disturbances and gross carbon removals from forest growth

- Data are the product of modeling and thus have an inherent degree of error and uncertainty. Users are strongly encouraged to read and fully comprehend the metadata and other available documentation prior to data use. - Net flux reflects the total over the model period of 2001-2024, not an annual time series from which a trend can be derived. Thus, values must be divided by 24 to calculate average annual net flux. - Uncertainty is higher in gross removals than emissions, particularly driven by uncertainty in removal factors. These uncertainties are propagated to the uncertainty in net flux. - Values are applicable to forest areas only (canopy cover >30 percent and >5 m height or areas with tree cover gain). See [Harris et al. (2021)](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-00976-6) for further information on the forest definition used in the analysis. - Emissions reflect stand-replacing disturbances as observed in Landsat satellite imagery and do not include emissions from unobserved forest degradation. - Activity data used as the basis of the estimates contain temporal inconsistencies: - Removals data contain temporal inconsistencies because tree cover gain represents a cumulative total from 2000-2020, rather than annual gains as estimated through 2024. - Improvements in the detection of tree cover loss due to the incorporation of new satellite data and methodology changes between 2011 and 2015 may result in higher estimates of emissions in recent years compared to earlier years. Refer [here](https://www.globalforestwatch.org/blog/data/20-years-global-tree-cover-loss-data-trends/) for additional information. - Large jumps in net flux along some boundary are due to the use of ecozone-specific removal factors. The changes in net flux occur at ecozone boundaries, where different removal factors are applied on each side. - This dataset has been updated since its original publication. See Overview for more information.

Forest Change

https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/17/1217/2025/

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