Assessment of trends in live, aboveground biomass for the conterminous U.S.
Scott
L.
Powell, Montana State University, Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences, spowell@montana.edu
(Presenting)
Warren
B.
Cohen, USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, warren.cohen@oregonstate.edu
Robert
E.
Kennedy, Oregon State University, Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society, robert.kennedy@oregonstate.edu
Despite the pressing need to accurately quantify the pools and fluxes of the forest carbon cycle, there is large uncertainty in some key terms, in part due to differing methods of accounting for disturbance and regrowth. Direct remote sensing of biomass stocks and fluxes in conjunction with time since disturbance mapping yields spatially and temporally explicit data. While this is not a stand-alone approach for whole forest carbon modeling, it does improve understanding of how disturbance and regrowth directly affect live carbon stocks, and hence how other forest carbon pools might respond. While passive optical remote sensing of biomass stocks has known limitations, a time-series approach mitigates modeling error in predictions of biomass and biomass flux. We used a sample of 23 Landsat time-series stacks across the conterminous U.S., paired with Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) measurements of live, aboveground biomass, within an empirical modeling framework to quantify recent trends in disturbance and biomass flux. Independent assessment of regional, long-term trends in biomass remains a challenge. Here we present an assessment of biomass trends based on repeat FIA inventories. Corroboration of biomass trends is an important step towards understanding the strengths and weaknesses of this approach. Maps of biomass and biomass flux have implications for various carbon accounting approaches, including forest inventory and process-based methods. Characterizing the timing and nature of disturbance events and predicting the amount and rate of biomass removed, remaining, and regrowing following disturbance can minimize assumptions about the fate of biomass in various other pools.
Presentation Type: Poster
Poster Session: Carbon Cycle Science
NASA TE Funded Awards Represented:
Goward, Samuel
Role of North America Forest Disturbance and Regrowth In NACP: Integrated Analyzes Of Landsat and U.S. Forest Service FIA Data - Phase 2