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Accuracy of rubber-related deforestation maps

Nature volume 644, pages E13–E19 (2025)Cite this article

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Matters Arising to this article was published on 13 August 2025

The Original Article was published on 18 October 2023

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arising from: Y. Wang et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06642-z (2023).

Accurate mapping of rubber plantations is essential to understanding where deforestation due to rubber production occurs. Wang et al.1 produced 10-metre-resolution maps of mature rubber with a reported high overall classification accuracy (OA = 0.95 ± 0.02), indicating that more than 4 million hectares of forests have been converted to rubber plantations in Southeast Asia and parts of China since 1993. However, we have serious concerns about the accuracy of these maps, as our analysis indicates that the area estimates by Wang et al.1 are substantially inflated. This observation underscores the need for caution in using these high-resolution maps for specific applications, such as assessing deforestation linked to rubber consumption under the EU regulation on deforestation-free products.

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Fig. 1: Rubber area comparison between official statistics and the map from Wang et al. for five example countries.
Fig. 2: Misclassification of acacia plantations as rubber in Wang et al.’s map.

Data availability

All data are taken from the previously published articles referenced in the text. The official statistical data used in this study are available from the sources listed in the Supplementary Information.

Code availability

For calculating the area, we used the same Google Earth Engine script provided in the code availability section of the original paper1.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program (JPJ012290), the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (JPMEERF20234004) and JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP22K18055.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan

    Nguyen Tien Hoang & Keiichiro Kanemoto

  2. Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto, Japan

    Nguyen Tien Hoang & Keiichiro Kanemoto

  3. Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Peter Potapov

  4. NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL, USA

    Pontus Olofsson

  5. Research Center for Social Systems, Shinshu University, Nagano, Japan

    Keiichiro Kanemoto

Authors
  1. Nguyen Tien Hoang
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  2. Peter Potapov
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  3. Pontus Olofsson
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  4. Keiichiro Kanemoto
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Contributions

K.K. and N.T.H. designed the research. N.T.H. performed the field survey and data analysis. N.T.H., K.K., P.P. and P.O. wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Nguyen Tien Hoang or Keiichiro Kanemoto.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Fig. 1 A selected example site of Wang et al.1’s failures in classifying rubber plantations.

a, Map of a site in Thua Thien Hue, Vietnam, showing Wang et al.’s rubber pixels overlaid on an ArcGIS Online basemap, highlighting correctly and incorrectly classified areas. The map was created using ArcGIS Desktop 10.8.2 software by Esri. The rubber map layer was adapted from Wang et al.1 (Springer Nature Limited) under a CC BY 4.0 licence. b, A field photograph taken in March 2023 using a Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced, covering locations 1, 2, 3, and 4 identified in (a). Location 2 features defoliated immature rubber classified as mature rubber, while locations 1, 3, and 4, consisting of mature acacia and logged acacia (2022), are misclassified as rubber. c,d,e,f, Field photos from November 2019 captured by a Mavic 2 Pro, corresponding to locations 5, 6, 7, and 8 in (a). These photos illustrate misclassifications: acacia and a fragment of natural forest (top right) in (c), acacia in (d) and (f), and acacia mixed with native timber trees in (e), all incorrectly identified as rubber plantations in Wang et al.’s map. ArcGIS Online basemap sources: Esri, DigitalGlobe, GeoEye, i-cubed, USDA FSA, USGS, AEX, Getmapping, Aerogrid, IGN, IGP, swisstopo, and the GIS User Community.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Observing seasonal rubber leaf phenology in Vietnam.

a,b,c, Photos from March 6–7, 2023, in Quang Nam province, illustrating varying stages of leaf phenology in rubber plantations. In (a), leaves have completely fallen with no new growth; in (b) and (c), early stages of leaf regrowth are visible. d,e, Photos from March 8–9, 2023, in Quang Tri province, further demonstrating phenological variation. Leaves are just beginning to sprout in (d) and have reached about 30% leaf coverage in (e). f, Photo from March 5, 2023, in Dong Nai province, showing rubber trees that have fully regained foliage. Notably, understory vegetation is visible in the rubber plantations depicted in (c) and (d).

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Methods, Supplementary Tables 1–7 and Supplementary References.

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Hoang, N.T., Potapov, P., Olofsson, P. et al. Accuracy of rubber-related deforestation maps. Nature 644, E13–E19 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08847-w

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