Partnership for Land Use Science (Forest-PLUS) Program

Overview

Project Duration – July 2012- Sep. 2017

IORA was a key in-country partner of the Forest PLUS Program, a bilateral initiative of USAID and MoEFCC. The Program aimed to build REDD+ readiness in India through ecosystem management, REDD+ MRV and PPP initiatives. IORA, in association with the Michigan State University (MSU), created a national Forest Carbon MRV system for India. We developed a state-of-the-art mobile application, M-Forest, for ease of collection of ground data by forest departments enabling transparent monitoring of carbon stock assessment and conservation of forest natural resources. IORA led the development of a national PPP and convergence framework for REDD+ in India as well as three REDD+ pilots. We partnered with Forest Survey of India (FSI) and Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) to design advanced algorithms for remote sensing analysis using optical and radar data for forest type identification, degradation and deforestation mapping.