Satellite-derived estimates of potential carbon sequestration through afforestation of agricultural lands in the United States

Abstract

Afforestation of marginal agricultural lands represents a promising option for carbon sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems. An ecosystem carbon model was used to generate new national maps of annual net primary production (NPP), one each for continuous land covers of 'forest', 'crop', and 'rangeland' over the entire U. S. continental area. Direct inputs of satellite "greenness" data from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) sensor into the NASA-CASA carbon model at 8-km spatial resolution were used to estimate spatial variability in monthly NPP and potential biomass accumulation rates in a uniquely detailed manner. The model predictions of regrowth forest production lead to a conservative national projection of 0.3 Pg C as potential carbon stored each year on relatively low-production crop or rangeland areas. On a regional level, the top five states for total crop afforestation potential were: Texas, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri, whereas the top five states for total rangeland afforestation potential are: Texas, California, Montana, New Mexico, and Colorado. Afforestation at this level of intensity has the capacity to offset at least one-fifth of annual fossil fuel emission of carbon in the United States. These projected afforestation carbon gains also match or exceed recent estimates of the annual sink for atmospheric CO 2 in currently forested area of the country.

US Forest Sector Greenhouse Mitigation Potential and Implications for Nationally Determined Contributions

“…Potter et al (2007) use satellite imagery and an ecosystem carbon model to estimate the technical mitigation potential of afforesting marginal agricultural lands. The study shows that converting up to 20 percent of existing cropland and rangeland in the United States to forests can mitigate approximately 20 percent of US emissions from fossil fuel combustion, although Potter et al (2007) do not consider economic costs or market consequences of land conversion that could lower the feasibility and therefore the extent of this mitigation potential.…”

Changes in soil organic carbon of terrestrial ecosystems in China: A mini-review

“…A large number of studies have indicated an improvement in vegetation and soil C accumulation when conversion of cropland to forest, afforestation and reforestation are implemented [54][55][56][57][58][59]. Zhou et al [60] reported that oldgrowth forests (stand age greater than 400 years) in southern China can still accumulate carbon in soils at 610 kg C·ha -1 ·a -1 .…”

Storage of carbon in U.S. forests predicted from satellite data, ecosystem modeling, and inventory summaries

“…The NASA-CASA model (Potter 1999;Potter et al 2003) has been used to generate national maps of annual net primary production (NPP) and aboveground biomass carbon pools in forests over the entire U. S. continental area using satellite observations at an 8-km spatial resolution (Potter et al 2007). An advantage of NASA-CASA results over the available FIA map products for forest carbon accounting is that NASA-CASA covers the entire country at a relatively high resolution.…”

“…Error terms of ±10% are reported for regional scale NPP predictions. The general CASA model for NPP has been validated against field-based measurements of crop production, forest ecosystem fluxes, and inventory estimates of carbon pool sizes at multiple locations in North America (Hicke et al 2002;Potter et al 2007). …”