Global Burnt Area (GBA 2000)

Over large regions of the globe, fires are known to contribute significantly to the injection of gases and aerosols into the atmosphere, and to be a major disturbance to the vegetation cover. Biomass burning contributes up to 50%, 40% and 16% of the total emissions of anthropogenic origin for carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and methane respectively. Both the scientific community and the policy makers are looking for reliable and quantitative information on the magnitude and spatial distribution of biomass burning. It is in this context that the Global Burnt Area – 2000 initiative (GBA2000) has been launched by the GVM Unit of the JRC, in partnership with 6 other institutions, with the specific objective being to produce a map of the areas burnt globally for the year 2000, using the medium resolution (1 km) satellite imagery provided by the SPOT-Vegetation system and to derive statistics of area burnt per type of vegetation cover