1
CHARGE
The goal of the breakout groups is to
– define and prioritize research questions to help guide the US Global Change Research Program,
– determine the relative priorities of the research questions, and
– designate whether research priorities are sufficiently mature for short-term research or are more long-term in scope.
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Breakout #2 Questions
What ecosystem observations are needed to improve our understanding of carbon on land?
What land-use observations are needed to improve our understanding of how carbon can be managed?
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Breakout Notes
Session 2 Group 2 - What land-use observations are needed to improve our understanding of how carbon can be managed?
• How do we know what land management practices are being used in crop lands, forested lands, grazing lands? (High/Short)
• Responsible for management of land - extending outside the U.S. (e.g., Ethiopian govt owns all land) and transfer – land use change.
• Current vegetative coverage (including historical and future)
• Observations that allow deforestation rates and ability attribute cover change (look for different types, such as roads/industrial settlement) – a system that uses a in situ information of causes / drivers of land use change - social and economic (High/Short)• How do we know if the land is being managed sustainably?• Is there a different land use being used, and what is it?
4
Breakout Notes• Ecological site descriptions with state and transitional
framework
• Soil Survey – dynamic soil property inventories, range land health inventories
• Potential for Carbon Sequestration
• Missing land use management database – National land ownership database not available, farm service agency does have a land database, but restricted, NRI database also restricted, FIA – doesn’t have accurate deforestation data (Med-High/Short)
• Gaps in data and gaps in coverage
• Carbon Mass Observations
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Breakout Notes• Deal with economic data
• Columbia university has been working with these type of datasets (pop. data, economic data, etc.).• Tracking commercial real estate, land use transitions, speed limit
increases is causing more sprawl, • Sonorian datasets available
• Put data in formats that are usable – e.g., world population data is spotty
• How can proprietary data be incorporated without compromising personal data? (High/Short)• aggregate to larger scale (CEAP program at NRI is doing that)
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Breakout Notes• Mining activities – database on, mining claims; surface impact
is not available in a dataset; potential use of the land is available
• Fertilizer use, irrigation, animal densities, no till operation
• Water quality data – sediment data, watershed level data
• Do we need land value, assessed land values; value can be calculated (Med/Short)• National wealth, prices of commodities, economical indicators
• International road database; US does not have multi temporal dataset (Med/Short)
• Nightlight dataset and the change
• Temporal datasets needed
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Breakout Notes• Fuel wood (cooking in the developing world) dataset
• Datasets needed on natural disasters, conflicts, refugees Campaign for monitoring disturbances etc.(Med/Short)
• Ask the questions before collecting the data
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Breakout Notes• What are the resolutions and extents required to characterize
carbon relevant land use and transitions due to natural and anthropogenic disturbances? (Med-High/short
• What are the resolutions and extents of the variables required to inform carbon management? (Med/short
• We need to know the energy budget of land use practices? (High/short
• What is the baseline carbon balance for major land uses within particular ecoregions? (High/short• What is the Pattern and changes anticipated under land use and climate
change scenarios
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Breakout Notes• How do you scale flux tower observations and remote sensing
observations (and fill in the gaps)? (High/short and long)
• How do you constrain flux tower observation by remote sensing observations?
• We must refrain from “paint by numbers” way from the past.
• How can we tie essential variables and work them into the models?• Biomass – above and below ground• Soil moisture & temperature• Leaf area index (LAI) • Land Cover
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Breakout Notes• What is the map of the potential of soil carbon sequestration?
(High/Long)• We know what the soil carbon content was before / after cultivation
• Can the soil carbon be recharged after cultivation?
• Soil carbon chronological sequences
• We need an assessment of above ground carbon stocks? (High/short and long)
• Phenology and Seasonality (med/short)• Geospatial• More than vegetation (albedo, snow)
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Research Questions – Session 2Research question/topic Priority
H/M/L
Short: ≤10y
Long: >10y
What are the land management practices are being used in croplands, forested lands, grazing lands?
H Short & continuing
What are approaches to enable change attribution to distinguish land use change from land cover change?
H Short/Long
How can proprietary/withheld data be incorporated & analyzed without compromising personal data?
H Short
Who owns this parcel? Who is responsible for its management? (Lack of a national cadastre.)
M/H Short Long
What is the value of this parcel? (Lack of integrated land value databases.)
M Short & continuing
What is the pattern of the transportation networks (roads & rails) past, present, future US & aboard.
M Short & continuing
When & where are natural disasters, conflicts & refugees? (Campaign for monitoring disturbances that can result in land use change.)
M Short & continuing
Session 2 Group 2 - #2 What land-use observations are needed to improve our understanding of how carbon can be managed?
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Research Questions – Session 2Research question/topic Priority
H/M/L
Short: ≤10y
Long: >10y
What is the geographic distribution of current C stocks, above & belowground?
H Short & continuing
What is the geographic distribution of soil C sequestration potential?
H Long
What is the baseline C balance for major land uses within ecoregions?
H Short
What is the energy budget for major land use practices within ecoregions?
H Short
How do you reconcile scales of flux tower and remote sensing observations to map fluxes synoptically?
H Short Long
What are the resolutions & extents of ECVs+ required to characterize carbon dynamics arising from natural & anthropogenic disturbances?
M/H Short
What are the resolutions and extents of ECVs+ required to inform carbon management?
M Short
What is the phenology/seasonality of ECVs+ including variability and trends?
M Short
Session 2 Group 2 - #1 What ecosystem observations are needed to improve our understanding of carbon on land?
ECVs+ Essential Climate Variables plus descriptors of soil state (moisture, temperature, carbon, nutrients, etc.)