Spatial quantification of blue carbon at landscape and continental scales

Rusty A Feagin, Texas A&M University, feaginr@tamu.edu (Presenter)
R Wasantha Kulawardhana, Jackson State University, rajani.w.kulawardhana@jsums.edu
Audra L Hinson, Texas A&M University, audra.hinson2014@aggienetwork.com
Sorin C Popescu, Texas A&M University, s-popescu@tamu.edu
Thomas S Bianchi, University of Florida, tbianchi@ufl.edu
Kevin M Yeager, University of Kentucky, kevin.yeager@uky.edu
Raymond G Najjar, Pennsylvania State University, rgn1@psu.edu
Kevin D Kroeger, USGS - Woods Hole, kkroeger@usgs.gov
Lisa Windham-Myers, USGS - Menlo Park, lwindham-myers@usgs.gov

Coastal wetlands have the potential to be large reservoirs of carbon that can be bought and sold in the context of CO2 sequestration projects. The potential of a carbon sequestration project in relation to its location could be influential in determining coastal policy and management in the coming decades. Little is known about the spatial distribution of aboveground and belowground carbon stocks in these coastal environments. Our work has sought to address this gap in knowledge by developing methods to measure stocks and fluxes at both landscape scale and continental scale. At the landscape scale, we have developed methods to quantify herbaceous biomass using 1m2 horizontal resolution LIDAR data sets, in combination with color infrared imagery. The best models are able to predict with errors of ~16% from field-measured biomass. To obtain maps of belowground soil organic carbon at these same locations, we have interpolated point samples obtained by coring. We have found that the spatial distribution of carbon stores at the landscape scale is largely influenced by land use and relative sea-level rise history. At the continental scale, we have taken a GIS-based approach, linking National Wetlands Inventory datasets with the Soil Survey Geographic Database to map soil organic carbon. Our goal has been to identify the economic potential for blue carbon conservation projects within specific estuarine basins, states, and wetland types. Initial findings show high variance within individual estuarine basins, largely dependent on geomorphic position on the landscape, though there are continental scale trends to the carbon distribution as well. Our next goal is to map Net Primary Productivity in coastal wetlands using 250 m MODIS imagery, and link this to aboveground stocks and fluxes at the continental scale.

Presentation: 2015_Poster_Feagin_148_122.pdf (4764k)

Presentation Type:  Poster

Session:  Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) Posters   (Mon 1:30 PM)

Associated Project(s): 

• Najjar, Raymond: The Carbon Budget of Tidal Wetlands and Estuaries of the Contiguous United States: A Synthesis Approach (WETCARB = Wetland-Estuary Transports and CARbon Budgets) ...details
• Windham-Myers, Lisamarie: Linking Satellite and Soil Data to Validate Coastal Wetland 'Blue Carbon' Inventories: Upscaled Support for Developing MRV and REDD+ Protocols ...details

Poster Location ID: 148