National Aeronautics and Space Administration

CMS Biomass Pilot

The Biomass Pilot utilized satellite data, data from advanced airborne sensors, and new in situ field data to demonstrate an ability to produce improved quantitative estimates, with reduced uncertainties, of aboveground terrestrial vegetation biomass and carbon stocks at local to regional-scales (i.e., county/state) for selected regions. For both national and regional/local estimates, it developed and evaluated methodologies for aggregating to project, county, state, and federal levels and assessed the ability of these results to meet the nation's need for monitoring carbon storage / sequestration. The Biomass Pilot developed and evaluated a new model-data fusion approach to assess changes in carbon stocks over multi-year periods.

The Biomass Pilot was divided into two efforts, the National Biomass Product and the Local-scale Biomass Product. Each worked simultaneously to provide geospatially explicit, consistent estimates of aboveground terrestrial vegetation biomass and carbon storage for the US.

National Biomass Product

• Personnel from NASA Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL), NASA Ames Research Center (ARC), NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), the US Forest Service and Colorado State University worked collaboratively on this effort.
• Data acquired by ALOS PALSAR, then JAXA EORC processes special K&C slant range image strips, which are thousands of km long, rather than image frames.
• Data orthorectified using the SRTM DEM, and apply radiometric corrections are applied, including radiometric terrain correction.
• Orthorectified images are assembled into image mosaics.
• Preliminary maps are available.
• AGB Prediction Uncertainty (pdf)
• Preliminary Aboveground National Biomass Map (pdf)

Local-scale Biomass Product:

• Personnel from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), University of Maryland and the US Forest Service worked collaboratively on this effort.
• Four Study Sites were identified for year one, each with historical field and remote sensing data available and each amenable to updating of in situ and remotely sensed data.
• Sites were chosen to represent a range of forest stand types and ages.
• Preliminary maps are available.
• Forest Biomass in Maryland (pdf)
• Landsat Disturbance (pdf)

Biomass Data:

• Biomass Pilot data contributions

Biomass Pilot Profile:

• Biomass Pilot Profile includes abstract, data contributions and members.

For additional information see:

• Carbon Monitoring Pilot Initiative: Biomass and Carbon Storage (pdf)