Healey, Sean: USDA Forest Service (Project Lead)
Wilson, Sylvia: USGS / SilvaCarbon (Stakeholder)
Project Funding:
2012 - 2014
NRA: 2011 NASA: Carbon Monitoring System
Funded by NASA
Abstract:
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) compiles and monitors
national-level biomass estimates across the world s forests through the Global Forest
Resources Assessment (FRA). FRA reports represent the current state of knowledge
regarding key forest parameters as expressed by national forest agencies and ministries
worldwide. Data collected in the FRA is important to UN initiatives such as REDD
(Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation), which depend upon accurate,
precise, and consistent national-level reporting of forest carbon storage. The proposed
work would establish a satellite-based NASA CMS global inventory of aboveground tree
biomass (a primary component of overall biomass) as an official component of FAO s
FRA 2015. Methods for this inventory were developed during the CMS pilot phase
though a partnership between members of the CMS national biomass pilot team and
representatives of the national forest inventory (FIA: US Forest Service s Forest
Inventory and Analysis unit) on the CMS Science Definition Team.
Discrete full waveform lidar footprints from the GLAS (Geoscience Laser Altimeter
System aboard ICESat) are strongly correlated with aboveground tree biomass, and are
here used in a survey/sample context as the basis for the CMS/FAO global biomass
inventory. Based upon CMS pilot results, this approach is likely to provide an improvement in the precision of biomass estimates for countries without established
national forest inventories, and its global consistency should enhance inter-comparability
of biomass stocks across all nations. This inventory would be based upon model-based
estimation, an approach which provides clear estimates of biomass and related
uncertainty, accounting for both the variance of the sample and variance introduced by
modeling biomass at each GLAS shot.
FAO will coordinate global compilation of the ground data needed from national forestry
agencies for calibration of models to be used in this inventory. A series of approximately
10 regional workshops will be held for national forest inventory representatives from
around the world in 2013. At each workshop, time will be dedicated to engage
participating countries in the needed data sharing. Almost all costs associated with this
effort (including travel and lodging for many participants) will be borne by FAO. In
addition to providing country- and global-level forest biomass estimates, this project will
publish relationships between GLAS heights and field-measured biomass, which may be
of use to other CMS efforts using GLAS data to calibrate wall-to-wall maps.
Lastly, there is a forward-looking element which involves forecasting the precision of
this inventory approach using lidar data from the ICESat-2 satellite (launch: 2016).
Collection of ground data by this project will be coordinated with the ICESat-2 Science
Team, which is programming overflights of GLAS shots by MABEL (an ICESat-2
simulation platform) and airborne lidar. Taken together, the components of the proposed
project will: 1) develop a global CMS aboveground forest biomass product; 2) establish it
as a critical monitoring asset within the FAO FRA monitoring process; and 3) assess its
sustainability in view of upcoming NASA missions. The proposed work includes a good
deal of in-kind salary contribution from the Forest Service, and there is a 55/45 balance
of funding to non-federal/federal entities. Sean Healey, FIA s remote sensing
representative to FAO and a member of the CMS Science Definition Team, is nominated
for membership on the CMS Science Team.
Publications:
Birdsey, Richard A.; Dugan, Alexa J.; Healey, Sean P.; Dante-Wood, Karen; Zhang, Fangmin; Mo, Gang; Chen, Jing M.; Hernandez, Alexander J.; Raymond, Crystal L.; McCarter, James. 2019. Assessment of the influence of disturbance, management activities, and environmental factors on carbon stocks of U.S. national forests. Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-402. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. 116 pages plus appendices.
Healey, S. P., Patterson, P. L., Saatchi, S., Lefsky, M. A., Lister, A. J., Freeman, E. A. 2012. A sample design for globally consistent biomass estimation using lidar data from the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS). Carbon Balance and Management. 7(1). DOI: 10.1186/1750-0680-7-10
2015 NASA Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems Joint Science Workshop Poster(s)
- The New Forest Carbon Accounting Framework of the US and NASA Carbon Cycle Science: Identifying Concomitant Knowledge Gaps and Research Opportunities
-- (Sean P Healey, Christopher W. Woodall, Grant M Domke, John Coulston, Brian F Walters, James A Smith, Andy Gray)
[abstract]
2013 NASA Terrestrial Ecology Science Team Meeting Poster(s)
- The Global Forest Biomass Inventory
-- (Sean P Healey, Erik Lindquist, Paul Patterson, Sassan Saatchi, Michael Lefsky, Michael Hernandez, Alicia Peduzzi)
[abstract]
More details may be found in the following project profile(s):
