Tidal marsh biomass field plot and remote sensing datasets for six regions in the conterminous United States (ver. 2.0, June 2020)

Remote sensing based maps of tidal marshes, both of their extents and carbon stocks, have the potential to play a key role in conducting greenhouse gas inventories and implementing climate mitigation policies. Our objective was to generate a single remote sensing model of tidal marsh aboveground biomass and carbon that represents nationally diverse tidal marshes within the conterminous United States (CONUS). To meet this objective we developed the first national-scale dataset of aboveground tidal marsh biomass, species composition, and aboveground plant carbon content (%C) from six CONUS regions: Cape Cod, MA, Chesapeake Bay, MD, Everglades, FL, Mississippi Delta, LA, San Francisco Bay, CA, and Puget Sound, WA. We tested how plant community composition and vegetation structure differences across estuaries influence model development, and whether data from multiple sensors, in particular Sentinel-1 C-band synthetic aperture radar and Landsat, can improve model performance. The final model, driven by six Landsat vegetation indices and with the soil adjusted vegetation index as the most important (n=409, RMSE=464 g/m2, 12.2% normalized RMSE), successfully predicted biomass and carbon for a range of marsh plant functional types defined by height, leaf angle and growth form. Model error was reduced by scaling field measured biomass by Landsat fraction green vegetation derived from object-based classification of National Agriculture Imagery Program imagery. We generated 30m resolution biomass maps for estuarine and palustrine emergent tidal marshes as indicated by a modified NOAA Coastal Change Analysis Program map for each region. With a mean plant %C of 44.1% (n=1384, 95% C.I.=43.99% - 44.37%) we estimated mean aboveground carbon densities (Mg/ha) and total carbon stocks for each wetland type for each region. We applied a multivariate delta method to calculate uncertainties in regional carbon estimates that considered standard error in map area, mean biomass and mean %C. The original version 1.0 of the dataset can be obtained by contacting kbyrd@usgs.gov.

Version 1.0: 2017-12-14, https://doi.org/10.5066/F77943K8
Version 2.0: 2020-06-01, https://doi.org/10.5066/P90PG34S