Monitoring the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor: A NASA/CCAD Cooperative Research Project

To foster scientific cooperation under a Memorandum of Understanding between NASA and the Central American countries, the research project is developing regional databases to monitor forest condition and environmental change throughout the region. Of particular interest is the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor (MBC), a chain of protected areas and proposed conservation areas that will link segments of natural habitats in Central America from the borders of northern Columbia to southern Mexico. The second year of the project has focused on the development of regional satellite databases (JERS-1C, MODIS, and Landsat-TM), training of Central American cooperators and some preliminary forest cover and change analysis. The three regional satellite mosaics, available for the first time, will be used in next phase of research to generate forest and land cover maps. Following the validation stage, the regional data will be analyzed to examine forest fragmentation and forest cover change along the MBC. Forest biomass studies will be conducted in selected study sites to test combined radar (JERS, Radarsat) and optical data (Landsat-TM , ASTER, Ikonos) capabilities to detect second-growth forest and estimate above-ground biomass.