The Woods Hole Research Center has released the first hectare-scale maps of canopy height, aboveground biomass, and associated carbon stock for the forests and woodlands of the conterminous United States. The multi-year project, referred to as the National Biomass and Carbon Dataset (NBCD), produced maps of these key forest attributes at an unprecedented spatial resolution of 30 m. The digital raster data set is now freely accessible from the WHRC website at www.whrc.org/nbcd.
According to Dr. Josef Kellndorfer, who led the project at WHRC, "We are excited about the completion of this mapping project. The dataset represents a comprehensive assessment of forest structure and carbon stock within the lower 48 States at the beginning of the third millennium, providing an important baseline with which to improve our understanding of the United States forest resources and its link to the terrestrial carbon flux in North America. This dataset will be useful to foresters, wildlife ecologists, resource managers, and scientists alike."
Volker Radeloff, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, added, "Vegetation structure data has been the holy grail for biodiversity science: absolutely essential, but unattainable for large areas. The NBCD data set fills this crucial gap and will advance of our understanding of why biodiversity is so much higher in some areas than others, and target biodiversity conservation efforts."
The project was initiated in 2005 with funding from NASA's Terrestrial Ecology Program as well as support from the USGS/LANDFIRE consortium. Collaborators included the U.S. Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Program, and the National Land Cover Database (NLCD 2001) and National Elevation Dataset (NED) project teams at the USGS EROS Data Center.
To produce this first-of-its-kind data set, NASA space-borne imagery (SRTM/Landsat-7), land use/land cove
'/>"/>
| Contact: Elizabeth Braun ebraun@whrc.org 508-444-1509 Woods Hole Research Center Source:Eurekalert |
Related biology news :
1. Delicious new grape debuts
2. International Journal of Social Robotics debuts at Springer
3. Tumor microvesicles reveal detailed genetic information
4. X-rays offer first detailed look at hotspots for calcium-related disease
5. First detailed national map of land-cover vegetation released
6. Caltech scientists get detailed glimpse of chemoreceptor architecture in bacterial cells
7. Evolutionary process more detailed than previously believed, study shows
8. New Systems Biology Awards enable detailed study of microbes
9. Greenhouse gases from forest soils
10. Mangroves among the most carbon-rich forests in the tropics
11. Epidemiological tree study shows impacts of climate change on forests
 |
| Copyright © 2003-2012 Bio-Medicine. All rights reserved. ABOUT | CONTACT US | DISCLAIMER | PRIVACY POLICY | TERMS AND CONDITIONS |  |