The Role of Forests, Forest Management, and Natural Disturbance in the MidContinent Carbon Balance

1
The Role of Forests, Forest Management, and
Natural Disturbance in the Mid-Continent Carbon
Balance

• Richard Birdsey (USDA-FS)
• Charles Perry (USDA-FS)
• David Hollinger (USDA-FS)
• Veronica Lessard (USDA-NRCS)

Des Moines, Iowa 14 September 2004
2
Overview Role of Forests

• Forest facts from FIA (Hobie Perry)
• Reconciling forest and nonforest area estimates
  (Roni Lessard)
• Forest/atmosphere carbon exchange (Dave
  Hollinger)
• Preliminary forest carbon budget, possible
  causes, and uncertainties (Rich Birdsey)
• Discussion what is needed from land inventory?

3
What is FIA?

• Phase 1
• Remote sensing 180,000 points evaluated to
  determine the location of forest
• Phase 2
• Land ownership
• Forest type
• Tree species, size and condition
• Site attributes
• Phase 3
• Measure broader suite of forest health attributes

4
Forest cover types in the North Central region
5
Forest cover types with special emphasis on Iowa
6
How much forest is out there?
7
How is forest biomass distributed?
Source USDA Forest Service, Forest Biomass of
North Central FIA Unit (DRAFT)
8
How fast is the forest growing?
9
Soil carbon in forested lands of the North
Central region
10
Soil carbon in forested lands of Iowa
11
National Resources Inventory

• Conducted by USDA-NRCS
• Provides land cover/use data on non-federal
  lands in the United States (approximately 75)
• Captures additional data on
• soil erosion
• prime farmland soils
• wetlands
• habitat diversity
• selected conservation practices

12
(No Transcript)
13
(No Transcript)
14
(No Transcript)
15
(No Transcript)
16
(NRI-RPA)/RPA
(Nelson et. al. 2004)
17
(Nelson et. al. 2004)
18
Reasons for Differences

• Definitions
• Dates when data were acquired
• Sampling designs

19
Illustration of a 160-acre NRI PSU and a FIA
1-acre field plot. The NRI 18,000-scale aerial
photographs encompass approximately five percent
of the landscape therefore, only about five
percent of FIA field plots are imaged within NRI
sample photographs. These are demonstration
plots, and they are not part of the FIA or NRI
sampling frames. (Czaplewski et. al. 2004)
20
Why combine NRI and FIA data?

• One of the main goals of NACP is to combine
  enhanced C inventories, remote sensing, and
  models to provide a complete C accounting for the
  land sector, and comprehensive analysis of the
  mechanisms driving the fluxes (Wofsy and Harriss
  2002)
• Lack of scalable land cover and land management
  driving data is a main barrier to enhancing
  current C inventories
• Optimizing national land cover/management
  databases is one of the five highest priority
  enabling mechanisms of the NACP (Wofsy and
  Harriss 2002)

21
Challenges in building a comprehensive NRI/FIA
database

• Resolve definitional differences
• Develop new expansion factors
• Maintain fidelity of uncertainty estimates
• Ensure anonymity/confidentiality
• Fill data gaps

22
Tasks for building a comprehensive FIA/NRI
database to allow for C cycle model
inter-comparisons

• Reconcile NRI and FIA data and join to C models
• Create tessellated land use, land management,
  land use history databases
• Derive uncertainty estimates

23
(No Transcript)
24
Comparative CO2 Sink Strength
25
Variability in daily forest net C uptake
26
Forest Carbon Budgets - Spatial and Temporal
Resolution Capabilities from Inventory Data

• Spatial resolution as small as several counties

• Temporal resolution 5-10 years, evolving to
  annual

FORCARB Conterminous U.S.
Carbon OnLine Estimator
27
Forest Carbon Budget Estimated from Inventory
Data, Iowa and Illinois, 1987-97
The forest area of Iowa and Illinois is 2.6
million ha, about 9 of the land area.
Forest NBP 0.8 t/ha/yr
28
Main Factors Affecting Forest/Atmosphere Carbon
Exchange Midwestern U.S.
29
Main Uncertainties in Estimating Annual
Forest/Atmosphere Carbon Exchange for Large Areas

• Reconciling land area estimates
• Reconciling temporal resolution of data sets
• Ecosystem estimates and model parameters
• Biomass equations
• Productivity equations
• Forest floor dynamics
  (CWD, litter, humus)
• Soil C dynamics
• Tree physiology responses to factors
• Water transport
• Wood product transformation

Landscape monitoring
30
Objectives of Landscape Monitoring in the NACP

• Augment coverage of the land surface by intensive
  monitoring sites
• Natural disturbances and management
• Edges/fragmented landscapes
• Mountain terrain
• Facilitate scaling from intensive sites to
  landscapes
• Model parameterization or validation

31
Priority Measurements for LandscapesRanked by
Workshop Participants (top 24 only)

• Aboveground biomass
• CWD by size class
• Litterfall
• Site history
• Foliar N
• Forest floor mass
• Temperature
• Stand age (site age)
• Soil CO2 fluxes
• Precipitation
• Coarse root biomass
• PFD

• Vegetation height
• Dead wood decomposition
• LAI Soil moisture
• Woody shrubs
• Soil CN ratio
• 14 C incubation
• Soil carbon stocks(need to address organic soils)
• Net radiation
• Soil temperature
• Branchfall
• Specific gravity by spp

32
Potential Forest Landscape Monitoring Sites
Midwest U.S.
33
Summary Draft Forest Sector To Do List -
Midwestern U.S.

• Identify specific data needs kind of data and
  spatial/temporal resolution (what are the
  objectives of the mid-continent experiment?)
• Collect and compile statistical data sets
• Collect and compile remote sensing data sets
• Assess availability of forest flux sites and
  landscape biometric data (tier x sites)
• Review ecosystem process models and adequacy of
  model parameters
• Compile and validate estimates
• Analyze causes of observed effects
• Model scenarios and projections
• Archive data and models