Abstract
Current markets and international agreements for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) rely on carbon (C) monitoring techniques. Combining field measurements, airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR)-based observations, and satellite-based imagery, we developed a 30-meter-resolution map of aboveground C density spanning 40 vegetation types found on the million-hectare Island of Hawaii. We estimate a total of 28.3 teragrams of C sequestered in aboveground woody vegetation on the island, which is 56% lower than Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that do not resolve C variation at fine spatial scales. The approach reveals fundamental ecological controls over C storage, including climate, introduced species, and land-use change, and provides a fourfold decrease in regional costs of C measurement over field sampling alone.
Citation
Asner, Gregory P; Hughes, R Flint;Mascaro, Joseph;Uowolo, Amanda L; Knapp, David E; Jacobson, James; Kennedy-Bowdoin, Ty; Clark, John K . 2011. High-resolution carbon mapping on the million-hectare Island of Hawaii. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 9(8): 434-439. doi:10.1890/100179
