Tropical forests are lying to our satellites; they look green and healthy from space even when they're dying on the inside.
March 23, 2026
Original Paper
Spatiotemporal Assessment of Urbanisation and Deforestation Impacts on Forest Structure and Vegetation Health in Ekiti State, Nigeria Using Multi-Sensor SAR, Optical, and GEDI Data.
EarthArXiv · 10.31223/X5FZ03
The Takeaway
Environmental monitoring traditionally assumes that 'green equals healthy' when looking at satellite data. This research revealed 'ghost forests' in Nigeria where canopy heights plummeted by nearly 80% while the color stayed the same, meaning we are likely missing massive forest degradation because the trees still look fine from above.
From the abstract
Nigeria’s urban population is projected to reach 70% by 2050, highlighting the urgent need for sustainable land management strategies. This study integrates multi-sensor SAR (ALOS PALSAR, Sentinel-1), optical imagery (Landsat, Sentinel-2), and spaceborne LiDAR (GEDI) to quantify the impacts of urbanization and deforestation on forest structure in Ekiti State, Nigeria. Using Random Forest and Support Vector Machine classifiers, we mapped a net loss of 54,010 hectares of forest between 2007 and 2