Spatially Explicit Sources and Sinks of Carbon from Deforestation, Reforestation, Growth and Degradation in the Tropics: Development of a Method and a 10 Year Data Set 2000-2010
Neither of the pilot studies in NASA s Phase 1 of the CMS has explicitly considered
changes in terrestrial carbon storage that result from land use and land-cover change
(LULCC). The biomass pilot study could be extended to estimate changes in
aboveground carbon density, but modeling and ancillary data will be needed to account
for changes in soils, downed wood, and wood products. The flux pilot study has, so far,
concentrated on short-term fluxes of carbon (i.e., photosynthesis, respiration, etc.) and
has paid less attention to the longer-term, structural changes that result from disturbance
and recovery. Yet it is these changes in biomass and soil carbon that define the net
contribution of LULCC to the global carbon budget.
We propose (1) to develop and demonstrate a method for monitoring changes in carbon
density in forests and (2) to produce a map of gross and net fluxes of carbon associated with deforestation, reforestation, growth and degradation for the entire tropics. We will
focus on the changes in carbon density that result from disturbance and recovery.
We propose to use multi-scale changes in forest cover (gains and losses) combined with
lidar-based estimates of aboveground carbon density to inform a carbon-tracking model
that will calculate losses and gains of carbon at a spatial resolution of 250m across the
tropics and at a resolution of 30m for two regions within southeast Asia and the Congo
Basin.
As a part of this research, we will determine the propagation of error for each
method (change in land cover, change in carbon density), including allometry error and
modeling error. The analysis of error will help define how small a disturbance (in area
and in carbon density) can be observed. And, using a carbon tracking model, we will
investigate the effect of this minimum detection on carbon emissions.
The work proposed here will complement the current pilot studies and will track
changes in terrestrial carbon density, in particular the changes that result from
disturbance and recovery of forests. The model will use a combination of MODIS,
Landsat, and GLAS data to determine annual changes in carbon density in aboveground
living and dead biomass, belowground biomass, litter, coarse woody debris, and wood
products. The work will focus on identifying, characterizing, and measuring disturbances
(and recovery) and on calculating the resulting fluxes of carbon.
The products of this work will be (1) a methodological approach incorporating satellite
data, a carbon-tracking model, and error analyses, and (2) multi-scale gridded data sets
showing the distribution of carbon sources and sinks attributable to forest disturbance and
recovery. The method will not be limited to the data inputs used here. Rather the model
will be flexible enough to accommodate other data sets as they evolve. The products will
include the data sets used to calculate carbon sources and sinks (rates and intensities of
disturbance and aboveground carbon densities), the errors in each data set and the
propagation of error through the calculation of net carbon flux.
The work is relevant to societal needs in two ways: first, carbon emissions from
LULCC are an important but poorly constrained component in the global carbon balance;
this work will demonstrate the capacity of satellite-based measurements to reduce the
error of that flux. Second, project-level and national-level emissions are the basis for
evaluating emission reduction strategies, arguably the most effective mechanism for
reducing emissions of carbon from developing countries.
Contact Support to request an email list of project participants.
Project URL(s):
None provided.
Data Products:
Product Title: CMS: Estimated Deforested Area Biomass, Tropical America, Africa, and Asia, 2000
Start Date: 01/2000End Date: 12/2012 (2000-2012)
Description: This data set provides estimates of pre-deforestation aboveground live woody biomass (AGLB) at 30-m resolution for deforested areas of tropical America, tropical Africa, and tropical Asia for the year 2000. The biomass estimates are only for areas where deforestation occurred during the period 2000 through 2012. These estimates represent biomass loss over this time period and can be used to derive average annual carbon emissions from tropical deforestation.
Status: Archived
CMS Science Theme(s): Land Biomass; Land-Atmosphere Flux
Spatial Extent: Tropical regions of America, Africa, and Asia
Spatial Resolution: 30 m
Temporal Frequency: One-time estimate for the year 2000
Input Data Products: Ground-based data, Landsat 7, deforestation data sets, GLAS LiDAR, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and the Normalized Difference Infrared Index (NDII), and biophysical predictor variables (Zarin et al., 2016)
Algorithm/Models Used: RandomForest models
Evaluation: Previous estimates of tropical emissions from land use and land-cover change
Intercomparison Efforts/Gaps:
Uncertainty Estimates: Errors associated with changes in forest area and aboveground carbon density will be analyzed.
Uncertainty Categories: model-data comparison
Application Areas: - MRV, REDD+; - Forest inventory; - Land management; - Forest inventory; - Global carbon budget calculations
Relevant Policies/Programs: REDD+, UNFCCC-National Forest Monitoring System (NFMS), US-Indonesia Partnership on Climate Change and Clean Energy (US-Indonesia Partnership)
Potential Users: World Resources Institute (Global Forest Watch), Developing countries who are seeking to reduce emissions in the tropics (Brazil, Indonesia), Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE), Indonesia National Aerospace Institute (LAPAN), FAO, USAID, GCP
Stakeholders:
Current Application Readiness Level: 7
Start Application Readiness Level: 3
Target Application Readiness Level: 7
Future Developments: - Hold routine meetings with the GCP for updates.; - Publish results in 3 articles by the end of 2014 to raise awareness of the data products in the scientific community.
Limitations: - Coarse spatial resolution; - Too fine of temporal resolution – more noise associated with annual maps.; - Higher uncertainty associated with ancillary data for carbon pools that are not aboveground biomass.
Archived Data Citation: Baccini, M., W. Walker, M. Farina, and R.A. Houghton. 2016. CMS: Estimated Deforested Area Biomass, Tropical America, Africa, and Asia, 2000. ORNL DAAC, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. DOI: 10.3334/ORNLDAAC/1337
Bounding Coordinates:
West Longitude:
-119.00000
East Longitude:
180.00000
North Latitude:
30.00000
South Latitude:
-30.00000
Publications:
Anderegg, W. R. L., Ballantyne, A. P., Smith, W. K., Majkut, J., Rabin, S., Beaulieu, C., Birdsey, R., Dunne, J. P., Houghton, R. A., Myneni, R. B., Pan, Y., Sarmiento, J. L., Serota, N., Shevliakova, E., Tans, P., Pacala, S. W. 2015. Tropical nighttime warming as a dominant driver of variability in the terrestrial carbon sink. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 112(51), 15591-15596. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1521479112
Ballantyne, A. P., Andres, R., Houghton, R., Stocker, B. D., Wanninkhof, R., Anderegg, W., Cooper, L. A., DeGrandpre, M., Tans, P. P., Miller, J. B., Alden, C., White, J. W. C. 2015. Audit of the global carbon budget: estimate errors and their impact on uptake uncertainty. Biogeosciences. 12(8), 2565-2584. DOI: 10.5194/bg-12-2565-2015
Goetz, S. J., Hansen, M., Houghton, R. A., Walker, W., Laporte, N., Busch, J. 2015. Measurement and monitoring needs, capabilities and potential for addressing reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation under REDD+. Environmental Research Letters. 10(12), 123001. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/10/12/123001
Olofsson, P., Kuemmerle, T., Griffiths, P., Knorn, J., Baccini, A., Gancz, V., Blujdea, V., Houghton, R. A., Abrudan, I. V., Woodcock, C. E. 2011. Carbon implications of forest restitution in post-socialist Romania. Environmental Research Letters. 6(4), 045202. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/6/4/045202
Pan, Y., Birdsey, R. A., Fang, J., Houghton, R., Kauppi, P. E., Kurz, W. A., Phillips, O. L., Shvidenko, A., Lewis, S. L., Canadell, J. G., Ciais, P., Jackson, R. B., Pacala, S. W., McGuire, A. D., Piao, S., Rautiainen, A., Sitch, S., Hayes, D. 2011. A Large and Persistent Carbon Sink in the World's Forests. Science. 333(6045), 988-993. DOI: 10.1126/science.1201609
Baccini, A., Goetz, S. J., Walker, W. S., Laporte, N. T., Sun, M., Sulla-Menashe, D., Hackler, J., Beck, P. S. A., Dubayah, R., Friedl, M. A., Samanta, S., Houghton, R. A. 2012. Estimated carbon dioxide emissions from tropical deforestation improved by carbon-density maps. Nature Climate Change. 2(3), 182-185. DOI: 10.1038/nclimate1354
Gloor, M., Gatti, L., Brienen, R., Feldpausch, T. R., Phillips, O. L., Miller, J., Ometto, J. P., Rocha, H., Baker, T., de Jong, B., Houghton, R. A., Malhi, Y., Aragao, L. E. O. C., Guyot, J., Zhao, K., Jackson, R., Peylin, P., Sitch, S., Poulter, B., Lomas, M., Zaehle, S., Huntingford, C., Levy, P., Lloyd, J. 2012. The carbon balance of South America: a review of the status, decadal trends and main determinants. Biogeosciences. 9(12), 5407-5430. DOI: 10.5194/bg-9-5407-2012
Goetz, S. J., Bond-Lamberty, B., Law, B. E., Hicke, J. A., Huang, C., Houghton, R. A., McNulty, S., O'Halloran, T., Harmon, M., Meddens, A. J. H., Pfeifer, E. M., Mildrexler, D., Kasischke, E. S. 2012. Observations and assessment of forest carbon dynamics following disturbance in North America. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences. 117(G2). DOI: 10.1029/2011JG001733
Houghton, R. A. 2012. Carbon emissions and the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation in the tropics. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. 4(6), 597-603. DOI: 10.1016/j.cosust.2012.06.006
Houghton, R. A. 2012. Historic Changes in Terrestrial Carbon Storage in: Recarbonization of the Biosphere. Springer Netherlands, 59-82. DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-4159-1_4
Houghton, R. A., House, J. I., Pongratz, J., van der Werf, G. R., DeFries, R. S., Hansen, M. C., Le Quere, C., Ramankutty, N. 2012. Carbon emissions from land use and land-cover change. Biogeosciences. 9(12), 5125-5142. DOI: 10.5194/bg-9-5125-2012
Erb, K., Kastner, T., Luyssaert, S., Houghton, R. A., Kuemmerle, T., Olofsson, P., Haberl, H. 2013. Bias in the attribution of forest carbon sinks. Nature Climate Change. 3(10), 854-856. DOI: 10.1038/nclimate2004
Houghton, R. A. 2014. The emissions of carbon from deforestation and degradation in the tropics: past trends and future potential. Carbon Management. 4(5), 539-546. DOI: 10.4155/cmt.13.41
Houghton, R.A. 2013. Role of forests and impact of deforestation in the global carbon cycle. Pages 15-38 in: F. Achard & M.C. Hansen (editors). Global Forest Monitoring from Earth Observation. CRC Press, Boca Raton. ISBN 9781466552012 - CAT# K15197
Patra, P. K., Canadell, J. G., Houghton, R. A., Piao, S. L., Oh, N., Ciais, P., Manjunath, K. R., Chhabra, A., Wang, T., Bhattacharya, T., Bousquet, P., Hartman, J., Ito, A., Mayorga, E., Niwa, Y., Raymond, P. A., Sarma, V. V. S. S., Lasco, R. 2013. The carbon budget of South Asia. Biogeosciences. 10(1), 513-527. DOI: 10.5194/bg-10-513-2013
Tyukavina, A., Stehman, S. V., Potapov, P. V., Turubanova, S. A., Baccini, A., Goetz, S. J., Laporte, N. T., Houghton, R. A., Hansen, M. C. 2013. National-scale estimation of gross forest aboveground carbon loss: a case study of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Environmental Research Letters. 8(4), 044039. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/8/4/044039
Valentini, R., Arneth, A., Bombelli, A., Castaldi, S., Cazzolla Gatti, R., Chevallier, F., Ciais, P., Grieco, E., Hartmann, J., Henry, M., Houghton, R. A., Jung, M., Kutsch, W. L., Malhi, Y., Mayorga, E., Merbold, L., Murray-Tortarolo, G., Papale, D., Peylin, P., Poulter, B., Raymond, P. A., Santini, M., Sitch, S., Vaglio Laurin, G., van der Werf, G. R., Williams, C. A., Scholes, R. J. 2014. A full greenhouse gases budget of Africa: synthesis, uncertainties, and vulnerabilities. Biogeosciences. 11(2), 381-407. DOI: 10.5194/bg-11-381-2014
Archived Data Citations:
Baccini, M., W. Walker, M. Farina, and R.A. Houghton. 2016. CMS: Estimated Deforested Area Biomass, Tropical America, Africa, and Asia, 2000. ORNL DAAC, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. DOI: 10.3334/ORNLDAAC/1337