Human influences on land use, vegetation and emissions: carbon flux, ecosystem response, and human health along an urban to rural gradient in Baltimore

John L. Hom, USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station, jhom@fs.fed.us (Presenter)
Nicanor Z. Saliendra, USDA ARS NGPRL, nicanor.saliendra@ars.usda.gov
Matthew M. Patterson, USDS Forest Service, Northern Research Station, mmpatterson@fs.fed.us
Rodrigo Vargas, University of Delaware, rvargas@udel.edu
Kenneth L. Clark, USDA Forest Service, kennethclark@fs.fed.us
Lewis Ziska, USDA ARS Beltsville, lewis.ziska@ars.usda.gov
Leonard Bielory, Rutgers Univ., bielory@scarletmail.rutgers.edu

Urban to rural studies provide a gradient of atmospheric CO₂ and air temperature to investigate the changes in land use, species response, succession, and biomass. Carbon, water, and energy fluxes were measured at Cub Hill, a complex urban/suburban environment, with relatively high vegetation cover near Baltimore and in nearby rural forests at Elk Neck State Park and in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. Carbon flux estimates were closely correlated with the percent vegetation cover and land use estimated from IKONOS imagery in conjunction with city’s parcel database, CIR imagery, and LiDAR. At the 2 km radius, we found optimal correlations between temporal (Landsat-TM repeat cycles) and spatial (wind sectors) variations in average diurnal eddy fluxes and remote sensing metrics. During the non-growing and growing seasons, eddy flux heterogeneity in 24 wind sectors had statistically significant relationships to footprint diversity in LULC (%Vegetation, %Tree canopy), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) and Land Surface Temperature (LST); coefficients of determination (R²) ranged from 0.26 to 0.94. Background anthropogenic emissions at Cub Hill were estimated by comparing annual NEE and seasonal night time ecosystem respiration with the eddy flux of nearby rural forest towers. Maintained vegetation such as lawns added to the increase in growing season respiration. Elevated CO₂ and temperatures in urban environments have been shown to affect plant growth, weed and pollen production, allergens and human health. These urban to rural studies improve our understanding of human disturbances on ecosystem carbon stocks and the ability of urban forests to adapt to changes in climate and the atmospheric composition of greenhouse gases.

Presentation Type:  Poster

Session:  Theme 4: Human influence on global ecosystems   (Mon 4:30 PM)

Associated Project(s): 

• Birdsey, Richard: Integrating Landscape-scale Forest Measurements with Remote Sensing and Ecosystem Models to Improve Carbon Management ...details

Poster Location ID: 66