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High-resolution Monitoring of Forest Carbon Sequestration to Meet Climate Goals
  • +2
  • George Hurtt,
  • Carlos Silva,
  • Rachel Lamb,
  • Lei Ma,
  • Quan Shen
George Hurtt
University of Maryland, College Park
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Carlos Silva
University of Maryland, College Park
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Rachel Lamb
University of Maryland at College Park
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Lei Ma
University of Maryland, College Park
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Quan Shen
University of Maryland, College Park

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Abstract

Members of the U.S. Climate Alliance, a coalition of 24 states committed to achieving the emissions reductions outlined in the 2015 Paris Agreement, are considering policy options for inclusion of forest carbon in climate mitigation plans. Required forest carbon data consist of integrated: (1) baseline mapping of contemporary carbon stocks, (2) projections of future carbon stocks for planning, and (3) annual monitoring for assessment. Previously, we developed high-resolution mapping of contemporary carbon stocks and 300-yr projections of annual carbon sequestration potential (CSP) for Maryland at 90m resolution by integrating airborne LiDAR with mechanistic ecosystem modeling (Ecosystem Demography (ED) model). Here we extend this work to Delaware and present the first consistent, annual monitoring results for both states (Maryland and Delaware). For monitoring, we intersect annual carbon stock estimates with 30m Landsat-derived changes in forest area to compute realized carbon gains and losses over the period 2011—2019. Moving forward, we expect to extend this pilot system developed for Maryland and Delaware to an additional 9 U.S. states. As the framework is flexible, developing a nationwide or global system is increasingly feasible, particularly with the recent availability of GEDI LiDAR observations from space.