HR: 16:15h
AN: B54B-02 [Abstracts]
TI: The Impact of Selective Logging on the Regional Carbon Budget at the Tapajos National Forest: a
Modeling Study
AU: * Huang, M
EM: mhuang@globalecology.stanford.edu
AF: Department of
Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 260 Panama Street
, Stanford, CA 94305
AU: Asner, G P
EM: gasner@globalecology.stanford.edu
AF: Department of
Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 260 Panama Street
, Stanford, CA 94305
AU: Keller, M
EM: michael.keller@unh.edu
AF: USDA Forest Service, International Institute of Tropical Forestry, International Institute of Tropical
Forestry, San Juan, PR 00926
AU: Keller, M
EM: michael.keller@unh.edu
AF: Complex Systems Research Center, Morse Hall
University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824
AU: Knapp, D
EM: deknapp@stanford.edu
AF: Department of
Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 260 Panama Street
, Stanford, CA 94305
AB:
Selective logging has been identified as an important form of land use in the Brazilian Amazon region based on studies in
Large-scale Biosphere Atmosphere Experiment (LBA) Phase II (Nepstad et al., 1999; Asner et al., 2004). The ground and canopy
damage caused by selective logging could have significant ecological, biogeochemical and micrometeorological consequences.
Logging creates canopy gaps that affect photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) interception, latent and sensible heat
fluxes, water stress and plant productivity. Also, it creates an increased amount of coarse woody debris (CWD), dead leaves
and roots, which enlarge the carbon pools for respiration and fire. Furthermore, the biogeochemical processes in the tropical
forest including the nutrient cycles and wildlife would also be altered. Unfortunately, previous studies on impacts of
selective logging in that region are generally limited in space and/or time.
In this study, a high-resolution (30 m by 30 m) version of the Carnegie-Ames-Stanford Approach (CASA) model is applied to
quantify the impact of selective logging on the regional carbon budget at the Tapajos National Forest. A unique aspect of
this study is to take advantage of recent progress in characterizing explicitly the spatial and temporal dynamics of forest
canopy gaps and CWD generation based upon field and remote sensing measurements (Asner et al., 2005; Keller et al., 2004). An
undisturbed forest scenario and a logging scenario will be considered. The undisturbed forest scenario corresponds to the
condition prior to logging and will serve as a baseline simulation for comparison. By assimilating satellite-derived
vegetation indices, gap fractions, and CWD estimates before and after logging, we expect to simulate the spatial changes of
carbon storage and carbon release caused by logging over time. Measurements from the km 83 flux tower located at the Tapajos
National Forest will be used to constrain the model. This study constitutes our first step toward quantifying the impact of
land use changes on the regional carbon budget throughout the entire Amazon Basin.
DE: 0439 Ecosystems, structure and dynamics (4815)
DE: 0466 Modeling
DE: 0480 Remote sensing
DE: 1615 Biogeochemical cycles, processes, and modeling (0412, 0414, 0793, 4805, 4912)
SC: Biogeosciences [B]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005