Approximately 2.5 × 10 ⁶ square kilometers of the Amazon forest are currently degraded by fire, edge effects, timber extraction, and/or extreme drought, representing 38% of all remaining forests in the region. Carbon emissions from this degradation total up to 0.2 petagrams of carbon per year (Pg C year ⁻¹ ), which is equivalent to, if not greater than, the emissions from Amazon deforestation (0.06 to 0.21 Pg C year ⁻¹ ). Amazon forest degradation can reduce dry-season evapotranspiration by up to 34% and cause as much biodiversity loss as deforestation in human-modified landscapes, generating uneven socioeconomic burdens, mainly to forest dwellers. Projections indicate that degradation will remain a dominant source of carbon emissions independent of deforestation rates. Policies to tackle degradation should be integrated with efforts to curb deforestation and complemented with innovative measures addressing the disturbances that degrade the Amazon forest.

The Amazon holds the largest tropical rain forest formation in the world but this natural ecosystem has been altered by both anthropogenic and natural disturbances since the 1970s (Davidson et al., 2012). The Brazilian Amazon experienced the highest annual tropical deforestation rates until the mid-2000s when rates began to decline dramatically due to the government?s environmental law enforcement. Conversely, other forest disturbances, such as understory fire, selective logging, and fragmentation (Aragao et al., 2014; Arima et al., 2014) have gained more importance in terms of their impacts on remnant forests. The degree of forest degradation varies as functions of disturbance type, the intensity and frequency of disturbance events, and the time since occurrence (Cochrane and Schulze, 1999; Barlow and Peres, 2004; Brando et al., 2014). Additionally, the impacts of these disturbances may vary across the region due to different gradients of physical conditions including rainfall, edaphic and geological properties (Hoorn et al., 2010; Malhi et al., 2004).201

While forest evapotranspiration (ET) dynamics in the Amazon have been studied both as point estimates using flux towers, as well as spatially coarse surfaces using satellite data, higher resolution (e.g., 30 m resolution) ET estimates are necessary to address finer spatial variability associated with forest biophysical characteristics and their changes by natural and human impacts. The objective of this study is to evaluate the potential of the Landsat-based METRIC (Mapping Evapotranspiration at high Resolution with Internalized Calibration) model to estimate high-resolution (30 m) forest ET by comparing to flux tower ET (FT ET) data collected over seasonally dry tropical forests in Rondônia, the southwestern region of the Amazon. Analyses were conducted at daily, monthly and seasonal scales for the dry seasons (June–September for Rondônia) of 2000–2002. Overall daily ET comparison between FT ET and METRIC ET across the study site showed r² = 0.67 with RMSE = 0.81 mm. For seasonal ET comparison, METRIC-derived ET estimates showed an agreement with FT ET measurements during the dry season of r² >0.70 and %MAE <15%. We also discuss some challenges and potential applications of METRIC for Amazonian forests.