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Chapter 1. Scope, Methodology, and Current Knowledge Scope, Methodology, and Current Knowledge By Zhiliang Zhu, Benjamin M. Sleeter, Terry L. Sohl, Todd J. Hawbaker, Shuguang Liu, Sarah Stackpoole, Brian A. Bergamaschi, and Ashwan D. Reddy Chapter 1 of Baseline and Projected Future Carbon Storage and Greenhouse-Gas Fluxes in Ecosystems of the Eastern United States Edited by Zhiliang Zhu and Bradley C. Reed Professional Paper 1804 U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey U.S. Department of the Interior SALLY JEWELL, Secretary U.S. Geological Survey Suzette M. Kimball, Acting Director U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia: 2014 For more information on the USGS—the Federal source for science about the Earth, its natural and living resources, natural hazards, and the environment, visit http://www.usgs.gov or call 1–888–ASK–USGS. For an overview of USGS information products, including maps, imagery, and publications, visit http://www.usgs.gov/pubprod/. To order this and other USGS information products, visit http://store.usgs.gov/. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. Although this information product, for the most part, is in the public domain, it also may contain copyrighted materials as noted in the text. Permission to reproduce copyrighted items must be secured from the copyright owner. Suggested citation: Zhu, Zhiliang, Sleeter, B.M., Sohl, T.L., Hawbaker, T.J., Liu, Shuguang, Stackpoole, Sarah, Bergamaschi, B.A., and Reddy, A.D., 2014, Scope, methodology, and current knowledge, chap. 1 of Zhu, Zhiliang, and Reed, B.C., eds., Base- line and projected future carbon storage and greenhouse gas fluxes in ecosystems of the eastern United States: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1804, p. 7–16, http://dx.doi.org/10.3133/pp1804. ISSN 1044-9612 (print) ISSN 2330-7102 (online) ISBN 978-1-4113-3794-7 iii Contents 1.1. Scope and General Methodology .......................................................................................................7 1.2. National and Regional Studies of Carbon Sequestration and Greenhouse-Gas Flux ..............13 Figures 1–1. Map showing the spatial extent of the assessment of carbon storage and fluxes in the Eastern United States ..................................................................................................................8 1– 2. Flow diagram showing the general framework of the methodology used in the assess- ment of carbon storage and fluxes in the Eastern United States .......................................12 Tables 1–1. Land use and land cover in the Eastern United States ........................................................10 1–2. Main features of the assessment methodology of carbon storage and fluxes in the Eastern United States ..........................................................................................................11 1–3. Total carbon stock from all major pools in the forest ecosystems in the seven ecoregions used in the assessment of carbon storage and fluxes in the Eastern United States ..........................................................................................................13 1–4. Mean net carbon flux per unit of area from a selected sample of studies for the four major terrestrial ecosystems used in the assessment of carbon storage and fluxes in the Eastern United States ...................................................................16 Chapter 1. Scope, Methodology, and Current Knowledge By Zhiliang Zhu, Benjamin M. Sleeter, Terry L. Sohl, Todd J. Hawbaker, Shuguang Liu, Sarah Stackpoole, Brian A. Bergamaschi, and Ashwan D. Reddy 1.1. Scope and General Methodology sequestration and GHG fluxes and (2) help improve the understanding of carbon cycling at a regional scale by focusing This is the third in a series of reports produced by the on different ecosystems and their relations with natural and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for a national assessment anthropogenic controlling processes (such as climate change, of carbon sequestration and greenhouse-gas (GHG) fluxes in land use, land management, and wildland fires). To meet these ecosystems. The first two reports covered ecosystems of the objectives, the assessment was designed to provide answers Great Plains (Zhu and others, 2011) and Western (Zhu and to questions including the following: How much carbon was Reed, 2012) regions of the United States. This report covers stored in ecosystems of the Eastern United States and how may ecosystems in the Eastern United States, an area of about it change over space and time? How might the stored carbon 3.05 million square kilometers (Mkm2; fig. 1–1) that extends and carbon fluxes be affected by the natural and anthropo- from the Great Lakes, the Mississippi flood plains, and the genic processes that control their storage and release in the Appalachian Mountains to the plains of the coasts of the ecosystems of the Eastern United States? Results and analyses Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. provided in this report, as well as the previous two reports The Eastern United States is a region largely dominated covering the Great Plains (Zhu and others, 2011) and Western by forests. Conifer and deciduous forests span the Northeast (Zhu and Reed, 2012) regions of the United States, pertain to and the areas near and around the Great Lakes, and plantation- the first question and parts of the second question (because style forestry is prevalent in the southern coastal region. In the not all processes were exhaustively analyzed and presented). Southeast, forest land use is dynamic and involves management Results pertaining to the natural vegetation change under future and short harvest cycles. In other regions of the Eastern United climate change are not within the purview of this report. States, the pattern of forest lands decreasing in area because of The major ecosystems evaluated in this study are clas- urbanization but gaining in area from abandoned agricultural sified as terrestrial (forests, wetlands, grasslands/shrublands, lands is prevalent. There is a substantial amount of agriculture in and agricultural lands) or aquatic (rivers, lakes, estuaries, and the Eastern United States; at the same time, the region is highly coastal waters). The thematic definitions of the ecosystems urbanized in areas along the eastern seaboard and around the and their spatial boundaries are outlined in table 1–1 and in southern coast of the Great Lakes. Some of the major population Zhu and others (2010). The definitions are largely based on centers within the United States are in the East, and these centers the National Land Cover Database (NLCD; Vogelmann and are proving to be a key driver of land-use change from forest and others, 2001; Homer and others, 2007), which was the primary agriculture. Wetlands have a large presence along the Atlantic and source of initial land-use and land-cover (LULC) data for this the gulf coasts as well as in the Great Lakes region, representing assessment. The LULC data, derived from Landsat remote the majority of wetland areas in the conterminous United States. sensing data, were used to define the spatial boundaries of This assessment of carbon stocks and sequestration and the ecosystems that were assessed in this study. Because the GHG fluxes was part of a national assessment required by the remote-sensing data allowed for complete coverage of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA; U.S. Eastern United States, the resulting spatially and temporally Congress, 2007), which mandated that the U.S. Department explicit data products provided a convenient and compre- of the Interior provide estimates of (1) the amount of carbon hensive basis for deriving carbon and GHG estimates. stored in ecosystems, (2) the capacity of ecosystems to Within the NLCD database, land-use (for example, sequester carbon, (3) the rate of GHG fluxes in and out of mechanically disturbed classes (that is, forest clearcuts)) the ecosystems, and (4) the effects of the natural and anthro- and land-cover (for example, forests) classes were mapped pogenic processes that control ecosystem carbon balances and using data acquired from Landsat satellites. Because of the GHG fluxes. The GHGs considered in this assessment were input data and the remote sensing methods used, areas in urban centers with significant tree cover, as determined by carbon dioxide (CO2 ), carbon monoxide (CO, from wildland the NLCD, were treated as forest cover in this study. LULC fires only), dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), methane (CH4 ), change refers to changes between the LULC classes, including and nitrous oxide (N2O). This regional assessment was conducted to (1) contribute land conversions (such as from forest to developed lands) and to the EISA mandate for a national assessment of carbon cover change as the result of forest clearcuts. 8 Baseline and Projected Future Carbon Storage and Greenhouse-Gas Fluxes in Ecosystems of the Eastern United States 100° 95° 90° 85° 80° 75° 70° 65° 50° CANADA NEW NMW HAMPSHIRE MAINE NORTH LPH VERMONT DAKOTA NEW YORK NLF NEH NEH MASSACHUSETTS NCHF 45° NLF NEH SOUTH NCHF HELP WISCONSIN ACPB DAKOTA EGLHL NEH NECZ MINNESOTA SEWTP DA NAPU RHODE ISLAND MICHIGAN SMNIDP NCA NCA CONNECTICUT IOWA HELP EDP PENNSYLVANIA ACPB NEBRASKA CCBP OHIO NP NEW JERSEY ILLINOIS ECBP INDIANA WAP 40° RV DELAWARE MISSOURI WEST MARYLAND VIRGINIA MACP KANSAS IRL CA VIRGINIA KENTUCKY OH IP RV NORTH SEP CAROLINA TENNESSEE BRM OKLAHOMA BM SOUTH 35° AV ARKANSAS N CAROLINA A MAP MACP E OM
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