Dataset Information

High-fidelity national carbon mapping for resource management and REDD+.

ABSTRACT:

Background

High fidelity carbon mapping has the potential to greatly advance national resource management and to encourage international action toward climate change mitigation. However, carbon inventories based on field plots alone cannot capture the heterogeneity of carbon stocks, and thus remote sensing-assisted approaches are critically important to carbon mapping at regional to global scales. We advanced a high-resolution, national-scale carbon mapping approach applied to the Republic of Panama - one of the first UN REDD?+?partner countries.

Results

Integrating measurements of vegetation structure collected by airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) with field inventory plots, we report LiDAR-estimated aboveground carbon stock errors of ~10% on any 1-ha land parcel across a wide range of ecological conditions. Critically, this shows that LiDAR provides a highly reliable replacement for inventory plots in areas lacking field data, both in humid tropical forests and among drier tropical vegetation types. We then scale up a systematically aligned LiDAR sampling of Panama using satellite data on topography, rainfall, and vegetation cover to model carbon stocks at 1-ha resolution with estimated average pixel-level uncertainty of 20.5 Mg C ha-1 nationwide.

Conclusions

The national carbon map revealed strong abiotic and human controls over Panamanian carbon stocks, and the new level of detail with estimated uncertainties for every individual hectare in the country sets Panama at the forefront in high-resolution ecosystem management. With this repeatable approach, carbon resource decision-making can be made on a geospatially explicit basis, enhancing human welfare and environmental protection.

SUBMITTER: Asner GP

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3717137 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

High-fidelity national carbon mapping for resource management and REDD+.

Asner Gregory P GP Mascaro Joseph J Anderson Christopher C Knapp David E DE Martin Roberta E RE Kennedy-Bowdoin Ty T van Breugel Michiel M Davies Stuart S Hall Jefferson S JS Muller-Landau Helene C HC Potvin Catherine C Sousa Wayne W Wright Joseph J Bermingham Eldridge E

Carbon balance and management 20130716 1

<h4>Background</h4>High fidelity carbon mapping has the potential to greatly advance national resource management and to encourage international action toward climate change mitigation. However, carbon inventories based on field plots alone cannot capture the heterogeneity of carbon stocks, and thus remote sensing-assisted approaches are critically important to carbon mapping at regional to global scales. We advanced a high-resolution, national-scale carbon mapping approach applied to the Republ ...[more]

PMID: 23866822

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Project description:BACKGROUND:To reduce the uncertainty in estimates of carbon emissions resulting from deforestation and forest degradation, better information on the carbon density per land use/land cover (LULC) class and in situ carbon and nitrogen data is needed. This allows a better representation of the spatial distribution of carbon and nitrogen stocks across LULC. The aim of this study was to emphasize the relevance of using in situ carbon and nitrogen content of the main tree species of the site when quantifying the aboveground carbon and nitrogen stocks in the context of carbon accounting. This paper contributes to that, by combining satellite images with in situ carbon and nitrogen content in dry matter of stem woods together with locally derived and published allometric models to estimate aboveground carbon and nitrogen stocks at the Dassari Basin in the Sudan Savannah zone in the Republic of Benin. RESULTS:The estimated mean carbon content per tree species varied from 44.28?±?0.21% to 49.43?±?0.27%. The overall mean carbon content in dry matter for the 277 wood samples of the 18 main tree species of the region was 47.01?±?0.28%-which is close to the Tier 1 coefficient of 47% default value suggested by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The overall mean fraction of nitrogen in dry matter was estimated as 0.229?±?0.016%. The estimated mean carbon density varied from 1.52?±?0.14 Mg C ha-1 (for Cropland and Fallow) to 97.83?±?27.55 Mg C ha-1 (for Eucalyptus grandis Plantation). In the same order the estimated mean nitrogen density varied from 0.008?±?0.007 Mg ha-1 of N (for Cropland and Fallow) to 0.321?±?0.088 Mg ha-1 of N (for Eucalyptus grandis Plantation). CONCLUSION:The results show the relevance of using the in situ carbon and nitrogen content of the main tree species for estimating aboveground carbon and nitrogen stocks in the Sudan Savannah environment. The results provide crucial information for carbon accounting programmes related to the implementation of the REDD?+?initiatives in developing countries.

Project description:Long-term contrasts in agricultural management can shift soil resource availability with potential consequences to microbial carbon (C) use efficiency (CUE) and the fate of C in soils. Isothermal calorimetry was combined with 13C-labeled glucose stable isotope probing (SIP) of 16S rRNA genes to test the hypothesis that organically managed soils would support microbial communities with greater thermodynamic efficiency compared to conventional soils due to a legacy of lower resource availability and a resultant shift toward communities supportive of more oligotrophic taxa. Resource availability was greater in conventionally managed soils, with 3.5 times higher available phosphorus, 5% more nitrate, and 36% more dissolved organic C. The two management systems harbored distinct glucose-utilizing populations of Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria, with a higher Proteobacteria:Actinobacteria ratio (2.4 vs. 0.7) in conventional soils. Organically managed soils also harbored notable activity of Firmicutes. Thermodynamic efficiency indices were similar between soils, indicating that glucose was metabolized at similar energetic cost. However, differentially abundant glucose utilizers in organically managed soils were positively correlated with soil organic matter (SOM) priming and negatively correlated to soil nutrient and carbon availability, respiration, and heat production. These correlation patterns were strongly reversed in the conventionally managed soils indicating clear differentiation of microbial functioning related to soil resource availability. Fresh C addition caused proportionally more priming of SOM decomposition (57 vs. 51%) in organically managed soils likely due to mineralization of organic nutrients to satisfy microbial demands during glucose utilization in these more resource deprived soils. The additional heat released from SOM oxidation may explain the similar community level thermodynamic efficiencies between management systems. Restoring fertility to soils with a legacy of nutrient limitation requires a balanced supply of both nutrients and energy to protect stable SOM from microbial degradation. These results highlight the need to consider managing C for the energy it provides to ?critical biological processes that underpin soil health.

Dataset Information

High-fidelity national carbon mapping for resource management and REDD+.

Background

Results

Conclusions

Publications

High-fidelity national carbon mapping for resource management and REDD+.

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