Distribution of Estimated Stand Age Across Siberian Larch Forests, 1989-2012

This data set provides mapped estimates of the stand age of young (less than 25 years old) larch forests across Siberia from 1989-2012 at 30-m resolution. The age estimates were derived from Landsat-based composites and tree cover for years 2000 and 2012 developed by the Global Forest Change (GFC) project and the stand-replacing fire mapping (SRFM) data set. This approach is based on the assumption that the relationship between the spectral signature of a burned or unburned forest stand acquired by Landsat ETM+ and TM sensors and stand age before and after the year 2000 is similar, thus allowing for training an algorithm on the data from the post-2000 era and applying the algorithm to infer stand age for the pre-2000 era. The output map combines the modeled forest disturbances before 2000 and direct observations of forest loss after 2000 to deliver a 24-year stand age distribution map.