Changes in soil carbon occur with changes in land management. Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and The University of Tennessee investigated quantifying soil carbon changes over large regions.
They integrated remote sensing products with a national carbon accounting framework in a project funded by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Office of Earth Science. Results of the study were published in the March issue of the
Soil Science Society of America Journal and were also presented at the NASA Joint Workshop on Biodiversity, Terrestrial Ecology, and Related Applied Sciences in August 2006.
Tris West, project leader, stated, “The use of remote sensing products allows for the identification of soil and environmental attributes that are associated with each unique combination of planted crop and associated management inputs at the sub-county scale.” The 1992 National Land Cover Data, based on Landsat TM remote sensing data, was initially used in the carbon accounting framework. The use of these data allowed for estimated changes in soil carbon flux to be delineated at a 30-meter resolution across four land-use categories: row crops, small grains, pasture/hay, and fallow. The spatially-resolved results can also be used for comparison to other site specific measurements, such as measurements from eddy flux towers and atmospheric transport models, currently being developed under the multi-agency North American Carbon Program.
The study resulted in the integration of remote sensing with soil science and agricultural economics, which was used to predict future land use. The study is a proof-of-concept that illustrates the ability to model carbon dynamics associated with actual crop fields for entire regions or continents. The spatially-explicit carbon accounting framework is currently limited by the temporal and spatial extent of current remote sensing products. Future work includes the integration of land-use data sets based on MODIS and the Indian Remote Sensing satellite. Through the integration of inventory data and remote sensing data, the scientists expect to make enhanced land management data sets available to the scientific community in the near future.
The full article is available for no charge for 30 days following the date of this summary. View the abstract at:
http://soil.scijournals.org/cgi/content/full/72/2/285
Source: American Society of Agronomy
Related stories:
'Barren' seafloor teeming with microbial life
Once considered a barren plain with the odd hydrothermal vent, the seafloor appears to be teeming with microbial life, according to a paper being published May 29 in
Nature. “A 60,000 kilometer seam of basalt is exposed along the mid-ocean ridge spreading system, representing potentially the largest surface area for microbes to colonize on Earth,” said USC geomicrobiologist Katrina Edwards, the study’s corresponding author.
Warming climate may cause arctic tundra to burn
Research from ancient sediment cores indicates that a warming climate could make the world’s arctic tundra far more susceptible to fires than previously thought. The findings, published this week in the online journal,
PLoS ONE, are important given the potential for tundra fires to release organic carbon – which could add significantly to the amount of greenhouse gases already blamed for global warming.
Carbon sink capacity in northern forests reduced by global warming
An international study investigating the carbon sink capacity of northern terrestrial ecosystems discovered that the duration of the net carbon uptake period (CUP) has on average decreased due to warmer autumn temperatures.
Losing more than we gain from autumn warming in the north
An international study investigating the carbon sink capacity of northern terrestrial ecosystems discovered that the duration of the net carbon uptake period (CUP) has on average decreased due to warmer autumn temperatures.
Where does stored nuclear waste go?
Millions of gallons of hazardous waste resulting from the nation’s nuclear weapons program lie in a remote location in southeastern Washington state called Hanford. Beneath this desert landscape about two million curies of radioactivity and hundreds of thousands of tons of chemicals are captured within the stratified vadose zone below which gives rise to complex subsurface flow paths.
Don't judge a brook by its color -- brown waters are more natural
Over the last 20 years lakes and streams in remote parts of the UK, southern Scandinavia and eastern North America have been increasingly stained brown by dissolved organic matter. In this week’s
Nature journal (22 November) an international team, led by researchers from UCL (University College London) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), demonstrates that the colour change is indicative of a return to a more natural, pre-industrial state following a decline in the level of acid rain.
Scientists enhance Mother Nature's carbon handling mechanism
Taking a page from Nature herself, a team of researchers developed a method to enhance removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and place it in the Earth's oceans for storage.
A wheat for all seasons -- and reasons
The seeds may be lacking for perennial wheat to be grown on any significant basis in Texas, but interest is not, according to Dr. Charlie Rush, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station plant pathologist.