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Mapping and monitoring carbon stocks with satellite observations: a comparison of methods

Mapping and monitoring carbon stocks in forested regions of the world, particularly the tropics, has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years as deforestation and forest degradation account for up to 30% of anthropogenic carbon emissions, and are now included in climate change negotiation...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Goetz, Scott J, Baccini, Alessandro, Laporte, Nadine T, Johns, Tracy, Walker, Wayne, Kellndorfer, Josef, Houghton, Richard A, Sun, Mindy
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2009
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2667409/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19320965
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1750-0680-4-2
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author Goetz, Scott J
Baccini, Alessandro
Laporte, Nadine T
Johns, Tracy
Walker, Wayne
Kellndorfer, Josef
Houghton, Richard A
Sun, Mindy
author_facet Goetz, Scott J
Baccini, Alessandro
Laporte, Nadine T
Johns, Tracy
Walker, Wayne
Kellndorfer, Josef
Houghton, Richard A
Sun, Mindy
author_sort Goetz, Scott J
collection PubMed
description Mapping and monitoring carbon stocks in forested regions of the world, particularly the tropics, has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years as deforestation and forest degradation account for up to 30% of anthropogenic carbon emissions, and are now included in climate change negotiations. We review the potential for satellites to measure carbon stocks, specifically aboveground biomass (AGB), and provide an overview of a range of approaches that have been developed and used to map AGB across a diverse set of conditions and geographic areas. We provide a summary of types of remote sensing measurements relevant to mapping AGB, and assess the relative merits and limitations of each. We then provide an overview of traditional techniques of mapping AGB based on ascribing field measurements to vegetation or land cover type classes, and describe the merits and limitations of those relative to recent data mining algorithms used in the context of an approach based on direct utilization of remote sensing measurements, whether optical or lidar reflectance, or radar backscatter. We conclude that while satellite remote sensing has often been discounted as inadequate for the task, attempts to map AGB without satellite imagery are insufficient. Moreover, the direct remote sensing approach provided more coherent maps of AGB relative to traditional approaches. We demonstrate this with a case study focused on continental Africa and discuss the work in the context of reducing uncertainty for carbon monitoring and markets.
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spelling pubmed-26674092009-04-10 Mapping and monitoring carbon stocks with satellite observations: a comparison of methods Goetz, Scott J Baccini, Alessandro Laporte, Nadine T Johns, Tracy Walker, Wayne Kellndorfer, Josef Houghton, Richard A Sun, Mindy Carbon Balance Manag Review Mapping and monitoring carbon stocks in forested regions of the world, particularly the tropics, has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years as deforestation and forest degradation account for up to 30% of anthropogenic carbon emissions, and are now included in climate change negotiations. We review the potential for satellites to measure carbon stocks, specifically aboveground biomass (AGB), and provide an overview of a range of approaches that have been developed and used to map AGB across a diverse set of conditions and geographic areas. We provide a summary of types of remote sensing measurements relevant to mapping AGB, and assess the relative merits and limitations of each. We then provide an overview of traditional techniques of mapping AGB based on ascribing field measurements to vegetation or land cover type classes, and describe the merits and limitations of those relative to recent data mining algorithms used in the context of an approach based on direct utilization of remote sensing measurements, whether optical or lidar reflectance, or radar backscatter. We conclude that while satellite remote sensing has often been discounted as inadequate for the task, attempts to map AGB without satellite imagery are insufficient. Moreover, the direct remote sensing approach provided more coherent maps of AGB relative to traditional approaches. We demonstrate this with a case study focused on continental Africa and discuss the work in the context of reducing uncertainty for carbon monitoring and markets. BioMed Central 2009-03-25 /pmc/articles/PMC2667409/ /pubmed/19320965 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1750-0680-4-2 Text en Copyright © 2009 Goetz et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Review
Goetz, Scott J
Baccini, Alessandro
Laporte, Nadine T
Johns, Tracy
Walker, Wayne
Kellndorfer, Josef
Houghton, Richard A
Sun, Mindy
Mapping and monitoring carbon stocks with satellite observations: a comparison of methods
title Mapping and monitoring carbon stocks with satellite observations: a comparison of methods
title_full Mapping and monitoring carbon stocks with satellite observations: a comparison of methods
title_fullStr Mapping and monitoring carbon stocks with satellite observations: a comparison of methods
title_full_unstemmed Mapping and monitoring carbon stocks with satellite observations: a comparison of methods
title_short Mapping and monitoring carbon stocks with satellite observations: a comparison of methods
title_sort mapping and monitoring carbon stocks with satellite observations: a comparison of methods
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2667409/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19320965
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1750-0680-4-2
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