Principal Investigator:
Professor Peng
Gong
Division of Ecosystem Sciences and Center for Assessment and Monitoring of Forest
and
Environmental Resources (ESPM and CAMFER)
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720
Collaborator:
Ronald Amundson
Division of Ecosystem Sciences
Researcher:
Dr. Yinyan Guo ESPM and CAMFER
Duration of Project: 2 years
We propose to use a GIS framework to quantify the amount, and spatial patterns, of organic and inorganic soil C in California and the USA. The work builds on more than a year of research in which we have developed algorithms to access and use the national STATSGO soil data base for a variety of questions. Our assessment of C storage will represent a significant improvement over prior estimates of US soil C using STATSGO due to (1) the development of algorithms to estimate missing data and (2) an explicit estimate of the possible range in soil C storage values based on STATSGO data calcuations.
The generated maps and data will then be compared to digital data
that loosely correlate to "Factors of Soil Formation" in order to
understand, at a coarse scale, the controls on the soil C patterns. We will
also utilize digital climate data, and models of soil respiration, to calculate
C residence times for California and the nation.
Finally, we propose to devote a major effort to linking the CENTURY
multi-pool soil C model to a GIS framework in order to (ultimately) refine the
model to regional and national scales, and address questions of how soil C will
respond to climatic and land use perturbations.