Direct Measurement of Aboveground Carbon Dynamics in Support of Large-Area CMS Development

Wayne Walker, WHRC, wwalker@whrc.org (Presenter)
Alessandro Baccini, Woods Hole Research Center, abaccini@whrc.org
Fabio Goncalves, Woods Hole Research Center, fgoncalves@whrc.org
Curtis Woodcock, Boston University, curtis@bu.edu
Luis Carvalho, Boston University, lecarval@math.bu.edu
Alicia Peduzzi, US Forest Service, apeduzzi@fs.fed.edu
Javier Corral Rivas, Universidad Juárez del Estado de Durango, jcorral@ujed.mx
Carlos Lopez Sanchez, Universidad Juárez del Estado de Durango, calopez@ujed.mx

In response to the high uncertainties associated with traditional approaches to forest carbon accounting, this project seeks to investigate the potential for annual changes in the aboveground carbon density (ACD) of forests to be estimated directly, consistently, and with measurable accuracy across large areas using an array of existing commercial off-the-shelf and NASA remote sensing assets. The geographic focus is the country of Mexico where members of the project team have been working closely with the Mexican government as part of the USAID-supported M-REDD+ project to assist in advancing Mexico’s forest monitoring capacity. The specific objectives focus on quantifying the certainty with which extensive field, off-the-shelf airborne LiDAR (G-LiHT and M-REDD+), and NASA satellite data sources (MODIS, VIIRS, and Landsat) can be used synergistically to estimate wall-to-wall changes in ACD at varying resolutions (i.e., 500 - 30 m) across five Mexican states (Chihuahua, Oaxaca, Campeche, Yucatan, and Quintana Roo) over a ~15-year period (2001-2015). An independent accuracy assessment of the ACD change products will be conducted leveraging permanent plot data from the Mexico National Inventory of Forest and Soil (INFyS), intensive field and micrometeorological measurements from the Mexico network of eddy covariance flux towers (MexFlux), and deforestation data from Hansen et al. (2013). The anticipated results of this project represent a fundamentally new way of quantifying carbon fluxes that will significantly reduce uncertainty while leading to a more complete understanding of terrestrial carbon cycling. Unlike conventional approaches, which focus on deforested areas leaving degradation unaccounted for, the proposed approach provides for a unique estimate of gross emissions at the pixel level, integrating losses attributable to deforestation, degradation, and other forms of disturbance with gains attributable to growth.

Associated Project(s): 

• Walker (CMS 2014)