The Effects of Land Use Change on the Terrestrial Carbon Budgets of New England

Author

Jeon, Sung Bae ; Woodcock, Curtis E. ; Zhao, Feng ; Yang, Xiaoyuan ; Houghton, Richard A. ; Hackler, Joseph L.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Geogr. & Environ., Boston Univ., Boston, MA

Volume

5

fYear

2008

fDate

7-11 July 2008

Abstract

A regional scale examination of the effects of land use change on the terrestrial carbon budgets of New England from 1700 to 2100 indicates New England has been a carbon sink since about 1900 because of agricultural land abandonment that began in the mid 1800s and subsequent forest regrowth. However, recent land use change for new development has resulted in forest loss in New England, reversing the previous trend of increasing forest area. Analysis of Landsat data from 1990 to 2005 shows consistent patterns of forest loss. Preliminary results of a bookkeeping carbon model indicate a net release of 207 TgC for the period 1700-2005. Since 1900, New England has been a carbon sink and will continue to be one until around 2075. The loss of forest area due to urban growth reduces the magnitude of the current sink and length of time New England will be a carbon sink.

Keywords

agriculture; atmospheric boundary layer; land use planning; AD 1700 to 2100; Landsat data; New England; agricultural land abandonment; carbon sink; forest loss; forest regrowth; land use change; terrestrial carbon budget; Atmosphere; Carbon dioxide; Data analysis; Ecosystems; Geography; Humans; Layout; Pattern analysis; Remote sensing; Satellites; Land use change; New England; terrestrial carbon budget;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2008. IGARSS 2008. IEEE International

Conference_Location

Boston, MA

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-2807-6

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-2808-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IGARSS.2008.4780063

Filename

4780063