LandCarbon Active
Great Plains region of the United States
Baseline and projected future carbon storage and greenhouse-gas fluxes
Ecosystems of the Western United States
Baseline and projected future carbon storage and greenhouse-gas fluxes
Ecosystems of the eastern United States
Baseline and projected future carbon storage and greenhouse-gas fluxes
Ecosystems of Alaska
Baseline and projected future carbon storage and greenhouse-gas fluxes
The biologic carbon sequestration assessment program (LandCarbon) investigates ecosystem carbon cycle problems and develops carbon management science and monitoring methods.
Specifically, LandCarbon is focused on the following research areas:
- Synthesize and assess current and potential carbon balance (stocks and fluxes) in major terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems
- Evaluate the effects of both natural and anthropogenic driving forces on ecosystem carbon balance and greenhouse gas fluxes
- Develop carbon monitoring methods and capabilities
- Conduct research and provide science support for increasing carbon sequestration in land management policies and practices
Since 2010, the USGS has:
- Released a methodology for the national assessment of biologic carbon sequestration (USGS Scientific Investigations Report 5233)
- Completed the assessment for the conterminous United States divided into three regional reports (USGS Professional Papers 1787- Great Plains, 1797- Western US, and 1804- Eastern US), and Alaska and Hawaii separately
- Developed and released a LandCarbon website for data distribution and visualization.
Additionally, a number of research papers have been published in leading journals by USGS and academic scientists supported by the program.
Going forward, the new focus of the program is in two priority areas:
- Synthesis and assessment linking ecosystem carbon balance with natural and anthropogenic processes as well as carbon management
- Carbon sequestration application studies in support of Department of the Interior land management decision making
Activities:
Aquatic Systems
The USGS investigates the amount of carbon burial, emissions, and export taking place in the aquatic ecosystems of the United States. Data analysis and modeling are used to identify the controls on greenhouse gas emissions from lakes and rivers, as well as the magnitude of carbon burial in sediments. Linkages between land use and carbon cycling in nearby aquatic habitats are being characterized in order to understand the effects of human activity such as agriculture and development on aquatic carbon cycling. Carbon export to the coastal ocean is also being quantified, and ecosystem models will describe the movement of continental carbon exports through the coastal food web.
Inland aquatic ecosystems (rivers, lakes, ponds, and reservoirs) play several important roles in the carbon cycle. Carbon that has been fixed via terrestrial primary production and processed in the soil is exported to surface water as both organic and mineral carbon compounds. In the aquatic environment, organic carbon compounds are respired (converted to CO2) by bacteria. This process can lead to a greater concentration of CO2 in the water than in the air (supersaturation), which results in "degassing", or emission of CO2 to the atmosphere. At the same time, plants and algae in aquatic ecosystems take up CO2 for photosynthesis. As it moves through the food web, most of this carbon is ultimately converted back to CO2 by respiration, but some of it can be buried in sediments. Anaerobic decomposition of carbon buried in sediments can create CH4, another greenhouse gas, which can also escape to the atmosphere. River systems transport carbon, originating from both terrestrial and aquatic systems, to the coastal ocean, where it is then further processed (emitted as greenhouse gases, buried in sediments, or transported offshore).
Carbon Sequestration Assessment
According to the newly completed the 2nd State of Carbon Cycle Report (), Terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in the United States are a significant carbon sinks, taking up approximately a quarter of the nation’s CO2 emissions. The ecosystem carbon sink can be highly variable over space and time due to natural disturbances and land use decisions (Goodale and others, 2002)). Fire, for example, is a disturbance that affects a forest's carbon storage and has effects of both releasing CO2 and CH4 back into the atmosphere and strengthening a forest ecosystem's ability to increase sequestration over the long-term. USGS conducts synthesis and assessment of carbon sequestration processes and long-term balances of major ecosystems including forests, croplands, grasslands, and wetlands in relation to both natural and anthropogenic driving forces.
Ecosystem Disturbances – Wildland Fire
Ecosystem disturbance modeling and emission estimation produces spatially-explicit forecasts of fire patterns, and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions for U.S biomes. At the heart of the approach is a series of statistical and process-based models, coded in C++, that simulate processes of fire ignition, spread, and emissions. Patterns of historic ignitions are characterized using logistic regressions that relate ignition location to daily fuel moisture conditions, as well as, vegetation type and urban extent. These ignition models are used to determine when and where ignitions are located under stable or changing climate scenarios. Once ignitions are located, the area burned is determined by allowing each ignition to spread using the minimum travel time algorithm. After fire spread is complete, emissions are calculated using the FOFEM and CONSUME models.
Vegetation, fuels, daily weather, and fuel moisture data are critical to disturbance simulations. Vegetation and fuels data are provided by the LANDFIRE project. The daily weather data we use have 12 km spatial resolution and span from 1950 to 2010. For future climate-change scenarios, we randomly resample annual sequences of historic daily weather and rescale them to match the monthly means provided by downscaled climate-change forecasts. Fuel moistures and fire behavior indices are calculated for both historic and forecast daily weather using the National Fire Danger Rating System and then used as predictor variables for ignition locations, fire spread, and fire emissions.
Future Scenarios and land use modeling
To study potential changes in land use, land cover and land management in the future United States, USGS has incorporated probable scenarios as defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its fourth and fifth assessment reports (AR4 and AR5), which lists major driving forces of future emissions, including changes in demographic, technological and economic developments. To be able to incorporate these scenario assumptions into ongoing research and to produce nationally and regionally unique future potential land use and land cover scenarios, data on historical land-cover change from USGS and information derived from a global integrated assessment model are used in conjunction with expert analysis to 1) downscale scenario narrative storylines to national and sub-national scales, and 2) develop quantitative regional projections of LULC change for major land-use sectors of the conterminous United States. Results of this process are a set of quantitative future scenarios for specific land use and land cover classes, unique at both national and regional scales.
There are large uncertainties in how land and climate systems will evolve and interact to shape future ecosystem carbon dynamics. To address this uncertainty, we developed the Land-Use and Carbon Scenario Simulator (LUCAS) to track changes in land use, land cover, land management, and disturbance, and their impact on ecosystem carbon storage and flux. The LUCAS model combines a state-and-transition simulation model (STSM) for modeling land-change with a stock and flow model for modeling carbon dynamics, within a scenario-based framework. These two models were developed in conjunction within the ST-SIM modeling environment to provide a complete package for testing a range of future scenarios of land-use change and their impacts on carbon dynamics. Land-use change scenarios developed from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES), and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), as well as scenarios developed from historical land-use change datasets that include a range of mitigation and adaptation policies can be applied in the model.
Below are data releases associated with this project.
Below are publications associated with this project.
Integrating continuous stocks and flows into state-and-transition simulation models of landscape change
Organic carbon burial in global lakes and reservoirs
Benefits of the fire mitigation ecosystem service in the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia, USA
Remote sensing for wetland mapping and historical change detection at the Nisqually River Delta
Estimation and uncertainty of recent carbon accumulation and vertical accretion in drained and undrained forested peatlands of the southeastern USA
Climate impacts on agricultural land use in the USA: the role of socio-economic scenarios
Restoring tides to reduce methane emissions in impounded wetlands: A new and potent Blue Carbon climate change intervention
Evaluating the role of land cover and climate uncertainties in computing gross primary production in Hawaiian Island ecosystems
Validation of the USGS Landsat Burned Area Essential Climate Variable (BAECV) across the conterminous United States
Climate, wildfire, and erosion ensemble foretells more sediment in western USA watersheds
Biological and land use controls on the isotopic composition of aquatic carbon in the Upper Mississippi River Basin
Historical and projected trends in landscape drivers affecting carbon dynamics in Alaska
- Overview
The biologic carbon sequestration assessment program (LandCarbon) investigates ecosystem carbon cycle problems and develops carbon management science and monitoring methods.
Specifically, LandCarbon is focused on the following research areas:
- Synthesize and assess current and potential carbon balance (stocks and fluxes) in major terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems
- Evaluate the effects of both natural and anthropogenic driving forces on ecosystem carbon balance and greenhouse gas fluxes
- Develop carbon monitoring methods and capabilities
- Conduct research and provide science support for increasing carbon sequestration in land management policies and practices
Since 2010, the USGS has:
- Released a methodology for the national assessment of biologic carbon sequestration (USGS Scientific Investigations Report 5233)
- Completed the assessment for the conterminous United States divided into three regional reports (USGS Professional Papers 1787- Great Plains, 1797- Western US, and 1804- Eastern US), and Alaska and Hawaii separately
- Developed and released a LandCarbon website for data distribution and visualization.
Additionally, a number of research papers have been published in leading journals by USGS and academic scientists supported by the program.
Going forward, the new focus of the program is in two priority areas:
- Synthesis and assessment linking ecosystem carbon balance with natural and anthropogenic processes as well as carbon management
- Carbon sequestration application studies in support of Department of the Interior land management decision making
Activities:
Aquatic Systems
The USGS investigates the amount of carbon burial, emissions, and export taking place in the aquatic ecosystems of the United States. Data analysis and modeling are used to identify the controls on greenhouse gas emissions from lakes and rivers, as well as the magnitude of carbon burial in sediments. Linkages between land use and carbon cycling in nearby aquatic habitats are being characterized in order to understand the effects of human activity such as agriculture and development on aquatic carbon cycling. Carbon export to the coastal ocean is also being quantified, and ecosystem models will describe the movement of continental carbon exports through the coastal food web.
Inland aquatic ecosystems (rivers, lakes, ponds, and reservoirs) play several important roles in the carbon cycle. Carbon that has been fixed via terrestrial primary production and processed in the soil is exported to surface water as both organic and mineral carbon compounds. In the aquatic environment, organic carbon compounds are respired (converted to CO2) by bacteria. This process can lead to a greater concentration of CO2 in the water than in the air (supersaturation), which results in "degassing", or emission of CO2 to the atmosphere. At the same time, plants and algae in aquatic ecosystems take up CO2 for photosynthesis. As it moves through the food web, most of this carbon is ultimately converted back to CO2 by respiration, but some of it can be buried in sediments. Anaerobic decomposition of carbon buried in sediments can create CH4, another greenhouse gas, which can also escape to the atmosphere. River systems transport carbon, originating from both terrestrial and aquatic systems, to the coastal ocean, where it is then further processed (emitted as greenhouse gases, buried in sediments, or transported offshore).
Carbon Sequestration Assessment
According to the newly completed the 2nd State of Carbon Cycle Report (), Terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in the United States are a significant carbon sinks, taking up approximately a quarter of the nation’s CO2 emissions. The ecosystem carbon sink can be highly variable over space and time due to natural disturbances and land use decisions (Goodale and others, 2002)). Fire, for example, is a disturbance that affects a forest's carbon storage and has effects of both releasing CO2 and CH4 back into the atmosphere and strengthening a forest ecosystem's ability to increase sequestration over the long-term. USGS conducts synthesis and assessment of carbon sequestration processes and long-term balances of major ecosystems including forests, croplands, grasslands, and wetlands in relation to both natural and anthropogenic driving forces.
Ecosystem Disturbances – Wildland Fire
Ecosystem disturbance modeling and emission estimation produces spatially-explicit forecasts of fire patterns, and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions for U.S biomes. At the heart of the approach is a series of statistical and process-based models, coded in C++, that simulate processes of fire ignition, spread, and emissions. Patterns of historic ignitions are characterized using logistic regressions that relate ignition location to daily fuel moisture conditions, as well as, vegetation type and urban extent. These ignition models are used to determine when and where ignitions are located under stable or changing climate scenarios. Once ignitions are located, the area burned is determined by allowing each ignition to spread using the minimum travel time algorithm. After fire spread is complete, emissions are calculated using the FOFEM and CONSUME models.Vegetation, fuels, daily weather, and fuel moisture data are critical to disturbance simulations. Vegetation and fuels data are provided by the LANDFIRE project. The daily weather data we use have 12 km spatial resolution and span from 1950 to 2010. For future climate-change scenarios, we randomly resample annual sequences of historic daily weather and rescale them to match the monthly means provided by downscaled climate-change forecasts. Fuel moistures and fire behavior indices are calculated for both historic and forecast daily weather using the National Fire Danger Rating System and then used as predictor variables for ignition locations, fire spread, and fire emissions.
Future Scenarios and land use modeling
To study potential changes in land use, land cover and land management in the future United States, USGS has incorporated probable scenarios as defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its fourth and fifth assessment reports (AR4 and AR5), which lists major driving forces of future emissions, including changes in demographic, technological and economic developments. To be able to incorporate these scenario assumptions into ongoing research and to produce nationally and regionally unique future potential land use and land cover scenarios, data on historical land-cover change from USGS and information derived from a global integrated assessment model are used in conjunction with expert analysis to 1) downscale scenario narrative storylines to national and sub-national scales, and 2) develop quantitative regional projections of LULC change for major land-use sectors of the conterminous United States. Results of this process are a set of quantitative future scenarios for specific land use and land cover classes, unique at both national and regional scales.There are large uncertainties in how land and climate systems will evolve and interact to shape future ecosystem carbon dynamics. To address this uncertainty, we developed the Land-Use and Carbon Scenario Simulator (LUCAS) to track changes in land use, land cover, land management, and disturbance, and their impact on ecosystem carbon storage and flux. The LUCAS model combines a state-and-transition simulation model (STSM) for modeling land-change with a stock and flow model for modeling carbon dynamics, within a scenario-based framework. These two models were developed in conjunction within the ST-SIM modeling environment to provide a complete package for testing a range of future scenarios of land-use change and their impacts on carbon dynamics. Land-use change scenarios developed from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES), and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), as well as scenarios developed from historical land-use change datasets that include a range of mitigation and adaptation policies can be applied in the model.
- Data
Below are data releases associated with this project.
- Publications
Below are publications associated with this project.
Filter Total Items: 145Integrating continuous stocks and flows into state-and-transition simulation models of landscape change
State-and-transition simulation models (STSMs) provide a general framework for forecasting landscape dynamics, including projections of both vegetation and land-use/land-cover (LULC) change. The STSM method divides a landscape into spatially-referenced cells and then simulates the state of each cell forward in time, as a discrete-time stochastic process using a Monte Carlo approach, in response toAuthorsColin J. Daniel, Benjamin M. Sleeter, Leonardo Frid, Marie-Josée FortinOrganic carbon burial in global lakes and reservoirs
Burial in sediments removes organic carbon (OC) from the short-term biosphere-atmosphere carbon (C) cycle, and therefore prevents greenhouse gas production in natural systems. Although OC burial in lakes and reservoirs is faster than in the ocean, the magnitude of inland water OC burial is not well constrained. Here we generate the first global-scale and regionally resolved estimate of modern OC bAuthorsRaquel Mendonça, Roger A. Müller, David W. Clow, Charles Verpoorter, Peter Raymond, Lars Tranvik, Sebastian SobekBenefits of the fire mitigation ecosystem service in the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia, USA
The Great Dismal Swamp (GDS) National Wildlife Refuge delivers multiple ecosystem services, including air quality and human health via fire mitigation. Our analysis estimates benefits of this service through its potential to reduce catastrophic wildfire related impacts on the health of nearby human populations. We used a combination of high-frequency satellite data, ground sensors, and air qualitAuthorsBryan M. Parthum, Emily J. Pindilli, Dianna M. HoganRemote sensing for wetland mapping and historical change detection at the Nisqually River Delta
Coastal wetlands are important ecosystems for carbon storage and coastal resilience to climate change and sea-level rise. As such, changes in wetland habitat types can also impact ecosystem functions. Our goal was to quantify historical vegetation change within the Nisqually River watershed relevant to carbon storage, wildlife habitat, and wetland sustainability, and identify watershed-scale anthrAuthorsLaurel Ballanti, Kristin B. Byrd, Isa Woo, Christopher EllingsEstimation and uncertainty of recent carbon accumulation and vertical accretion in drained and undrained forested peatlands of the southeastern USA
The purpose of this study was to determine how drainage impacts carbon densities and recent rates (past 50 years) of vertical accretion and carbon accumulation in southeastern forested peatlands. We compared these parameters in drained maple-gum (MAPL), Atlantic white cedar (CDR), and pocosin (POC) communities in the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge (GDS) of Virginia/North Carolina andAuthorsJudith Z. Drexler, Christopher C. Fuller, James L. Orlando, Antonia Salas, Frederic C. Wurster, Jamie A. DubersteinClimate impacts on agricultural land use in the USA: the role of socio-economic scenarios
We examine the impacts of climate on net returns from crop and livestock production and the resulting impact on land-use change across the contiguous USA. We first estimate an econometric model to project effects of weather fluctuations on crop and livestock net returns and then use a semi-reduced form land-use share model to study agricultural land-use changes under future climate and socio-econoAuthorsJianhong E. Mu, Benjamin M. Sleeter, John T. Abatzoglou, John M. AntleRestoring tides to reduce methane emissions in impounded wetlands: A new and potent Blue Carbon climate change intervention
Coastal wetlands are sites of rapid carbon (C) sequestration and contain large soil C stocks. Thus, there is increasing interest in those ecosystems as sites for anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission offset projects (sometimes referred to as “Blue Carbon”), through preservation of existing C stocks or creation of new wetlands to increase future sequestration. Here we show that in the globally-wideAuthorsKevin D. Kroeger, Stephen Crooks, Serena Moseman-Valtierra, Jianwu TangEvaluating the role of land cover and climate uncertainties in computing gross primary production in Hawaiian Island ecosystems
Gross primary production (GPP) is the Earth’s largest carbon flux into the terrestrial biosphere and plays a critical role in regulating atmospheric chemistry and global climate. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS)-MOD17 data product is a widely used remote sensing-based model that provides global estimates of spatiotemporal trends in GPP. When the MOD17 algorithm is applied to reAuthorsHeather L. Kimball, Paul Selmants, Alvaro Moreno, Running Steve W, Christian P. GiardinaValidation of the USGS Landsat Burned Area Essential Climate Variable (BAECV) across the conterminous United States
The Landsat Burned Area Essential Climate Variable (BAECV), developed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), capitalizes on the long temporal availability of Landsat imagery to identify burned areas across the conterminous United States (CONUS) (1984–2015). Adequate validation of such products is critical for their proper usage and interpretation. Validation of coarse-resolution products often reliAuthorsMelanie K. Vanderhoof, Nicole Fairaux, Yen-Ju G. Beal, Todd HawbakerClimate, wildfire, and erosion ensemble foretells more sediment in western USA watersheds
The area burned annually by wildfires is expected to increase worldwide due to climate change. Burned areas increase soil erosion rates within watersheds, which can increase sedimentation in downstream rivers and reservoirs. However, which watersheds will be impacted by future wildfires is largely unknown. Using an ensemble of climate, fire, and erosion models, we show that post-fire sedimentationAuthorsJoel B. Sankey, Jason R. Kreitler, Todd Hawbaker, Jason L. McVay, Mary Ellen Miller, Erich R. Mueller, Nicole M. Vaillant, Scott E. Lowe, Temuulen T. SankeyBiological and land use controls on the isotopic composition of aquatic carbon in the Upper Mississippi River Basin
Riverine ecosystems receive organic matter (OM) from terrestrial sources, internally produce new OM, and biogeochemically cycle and modify organic and inorganic carbon. Major gaps remain in the understanding of the relationships between carbon sources and processing in river systems. Here we synthesize isotopic, elemental, and molecular properties of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), particulate orgAuthorsBritta Voss, Kimberly P. Wickland, George R. Aiken, Robert G. StrieglHistorical and projected trends in landscape drivers affecting carbon dynamics in Alaska
Modern climate change in Alaska has resulted in widespread thawing of permafrost, increased fire activity, and extensive changes in vegetation characteristics that have significant consequences for socioecological systems. Despite observations of the heightened sensitivity of these systems to change, there has not been a comprehensive assessment of factors that drive ecosystem changes throughout AAuthorsNeal J. Pastick, Paul A. Duffy, Hélène Genet, T. Scott Rupp, Bruce K. Wylie, Kristofer Johnson, M. Torre Jorgenson, Norman B. Bliss, Anthony D. McGuire, Elchin Jafarov, Joseph F. Knight