BiotechMashup

(Carnegie Institution) By integrating satellite mapping, airborne-laser technology, and ground-based plot surveys, scientists from the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology, with colleagues, have revealed the first high-resolution maps of carbon locked up in tropical forest vegetation and emitted by land-use practices. These new maps pave the way for accurate monitoring of carbon storage and emissions for the United Nations initiative on Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation.

By combining airborne laser technology, satellite mapping, and ground-based plot surveys, a team of researchers has produced the first large-scale, high-resolution estimates of carbon stocks in remote and fragile Madagascar. The group has shown that it is possible to map carbon stocks in rugged geographic regions and that this type of carbon monitoring can be successfully employed to support conservation and climate-change mitigation under the United Nations initiative on Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation.

(Carnegie Institution) By combining airborne laser technology, satellite mapping, and ground-based plot surveys, a team of researchers has produced the first large-scale, high-resolution estimates of carbon stocks in remote and fragile Madagascar. The group has shown that it is possible to map carbon stocks in rugged geographic regions and that this type of carbon monitoring can be successfully employed to support conservation and climate-change mitigation under the United Nations initiative on Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation.

Tropical forest loss accounts for an estimated 17 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. For tropical nations to be effective in tracking and reporting their emissions reductions from forest management and conservation, baseline data sets enabling wall-to-wall forest mapping and monitoring are invaluable. The Woods Hole Research Center has initiated a project focused on producing spatially consistent pan-tropical data sets to support the monitoring of forest cover and associated carbon stocks stored in above-ground forest biomass.

Scientists have released the first hectare-scale maps of canopy height, above-ground biomass, and associated carbon stock for the forests and woodlands of the conterminous United States. The multi-year project produced maps of these key forest attributes at an unprecedented spatial resolution of 30 meters.

(Woods Hole Research Center) Tropical forest loss accounts for an estimated 17 percent of global CO2 emissions. For tropical nations to be effective in tracking and reporting their emissions reductions from forest management and conservation, baseline data sets enabling wall-to-wall forest mapping and monitoring are invaluable. The Woods Hole Research Center has initiated a project focused on producing spatially consistent pan-tropical data sets to support the monitoring of forest cover and associated carbon stocks stored in above-ground forest biomass.

Scientists have developed new, more accurate methods for mapping carbon in Hawaii's forests.

(USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station) A team of scientists from the Carnegie Institution for Science's Department of Global Ecology and the USDA Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Research Station has developed new, more accurate methods for mapping carbon in Hawaii's forests. Their research appears in an online issue of the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

Tropical vegetation contains 21 percent more carbon than previously thought. Using a combination of remote sensing and field data, scientists were able to produce the first "wall-to-wall" map (with a spatial resolution of 500 m x 500 m) of carbon storage of forests, shrublands, and savannas in the tropics of Africa, Asia, and South America.