HR: 1340h
AN: B23A-0931    [Abstracts]
TI: Selective Cutting Impact on Carbon Storage in Fremont-Winema National Forest, Oregon
AU: * Huybrechts, C
EM: chuybrechts@mail.arc.nasa.gov
AF: DEVELOP Program, NASA Ames Research Center Mail Stop 242-4, Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000 United States
AU: Cleve, C T
EM: ctcleve@mail.arc.nasa.gov
AF: DEVELOP Program, NASA Ames Research Center Mail Stop 242-4, Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000 United States
AB: Management personnel of the Fremont-Winema National Forest in southern Oregon were interested in investigating how selective cutting or fuel load reduction treatments affect forest carbon sinks and as an ancillary product, fire risk. This study was constructed with the objective of providing this information to the forest administrators, as well as to satisfy a directive to study carbon management, a component of the 2004 NASA's Application Division Program Plan. During the summer of 2004, a request for decision support tools by the forest management was addressed by a NASA sponsored student-led, student-run internship group called DEVELOP. This full-time10-week program was designed to be an introduction to work done by earth scientists, professional business / client relationships and the facilities available at NASA Ames. Four college and graduate students from varying educational backgrounds designed the study and implementation plan. The team collected data for five consecutive days in Oregon throughout the Fremont-Winema forest and the surrounding terrain, consisting of soil sampling for underground carbon dynamics, fire model and vegetation map validation. The goal of the carbon management component of the project was to model current carbon levels, then to gauge the effect of fuel load reduction treatments. To study carbon dynamics, MODIS derived fraction photosynthetically active radiation (FPAR) maps, regional climate data, and Landsat 5 generated dominant vegetation species and land cover maps were used in conjunction with the NASA - Carnegie-Ames-Stanford-Approach (CASA) model. To address fire risk the dominant vegetation species map was used to estimate fuel load based on species biomass in conjunction with a mosaic of digital elevation models (DEMs) as components to the creation of an Anderson-inspired fuel map, a rate of spread in meters/minute map and a flame length map using ArcMap 9 and FlamMap. Fire risk results are to be viewed qualitatively as maps output spatial distribution of data rather then quantitative assessment of risk. For the first time ever, the resource managers at the Fremont-Winema forest will be taking into consideration the value of carbon as a resource in their decision making process for the 2005 Fremont-Winema forest management plan.
UR: http://develop.larc.nasa.gov
DE: 0400 Biogeosciences
SC: Biogeosciences [B]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting