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Good practice Imported

SMByC — Colombia's National Forest & Carbon Satellite Monitoring System

Colombia · Bogotá · See the Colombia profile · See the Bogotá profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 58% 40/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Since 2012 Colombia's IDEAM has run SMByC, a satellite-based forest and carbon monitoring system using Landsat, Sentinel-2 and other imagery to track deforestation nationwide, issuing quarterly early-warning bulletins that feed the country's official GHG inventory and REDD+ payme

6.7 million ha
National forest loss documented (1990-2017)
-44,262 ha (-36%)
Deforestation reduction (2022-2023)
SMByC — Colombia's National Forest & Carbon Satellite Monitoring System

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
IDEAM (Instituto de Hidrología, Meteorología y Estudios Ambientales) — Ministerio de Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible
Period
2012–present
Keywords
forestry, remote sensing, carbon accounting, environmental governance

Context

Established in 2012 under IDEAM in coordination with Colombia's environment ministry, SMByC is the country's official national forest-and-carbon monitoring platform, producing wall-to-wall national forest-cover change maps using Landsat, Sentinel-2 and other satellite imagery.

Activities

A four-phase protocol — pre-processing, digital image processing, validation and reporting — applies principal component analysis to Landsat imagery, supplemented by CBERS, RapidEye and ASTER data, and issues four deforestation early-warning bulletins a year.

Results

By 2017 SMByC had documented 27 years of change (1990-2017), including 6.7 million hectares of national forest loss and 783,899 hectares lost in 2013-2017. SMByC data underpins Colombia's official deforestation figures, including a 36% year-on-year drop reported for 2023 (123,517 ha in 2022 to 79,256 ha, a reduction of 44,262 ha).

Conclusions

SMByC measures and reports deforestation but does not by itself cause reductions; Colombia's environment minister attributed the 2023 drop to factors beyond monitoring, and 2024 figures showed deforestation rising again amid El Niño conditions — satellite MRV is necessary but not sufficient for sustained forest protection.

Implementation
Indicative cost
High (€500k–€5M)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
IDEAM technical/remote-sensing staff, Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development coordination

Conditions for success

  • Access to satellite imagery archives (Landsat, Sentinel-2, CBERS)
  • Standardised four-phase processing protocol
  • Sustained government mandate as official MRV system

Common failure modes

  • Monitoring alone does not reduce deforestation — 2024 saw deforestation rise again despite continued monitoring
  • Depends on continued satellite data access and technical capacity

Commonly funded by

LIFE Programme National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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