Baseline and projected future carbon storage and greenhouse-gas fluxes in ecosystems of the Western United States

Abstract

Front of cover:A stand of mixed conifer trees in Glacier National Park, northwestern Montana. The mesic, closed-canopy forests are typically distributed on mountain slopes with high moisture gradients and include western hemlock, western redcedar, Douglas-fir, lodgepole pine, as well as spruce and fir species. These types of forests are affected by natural disturbances such as wildland fires with relatively long fire-return intervals. The major land-management activities affecting forests include fire suppression, timber harvesting, and recreation. For an overview of USGS information products, including maps, imagery, and publications, visit http://www.usgs.gov/pubprodTo order this and other USGS information products, visit

Integrated climate and land use change scenarios for California rangeland ecosystem services: wildlife habitat, soil carbon, and water supply

“…Land use-land cover change scenarios Future potential LULC change was based on a set of scenarios from three IPCC-SRES storylines (Nakicenovic and Swart 2000): A2, A1B, and B1 that were developed as part of the United States Geological Survey's (USGS) national carbon sequestration assessment of ecosystem carbon stocks, carbon sequestration, and greenhouse gas fluxes under present conditions and future scenarios (hereafter referred to as the USGS assessment) Zhu and Reed 2012). The three scenarios differ by socioeconomic drivers that include population, economic development, rate of technological innovation, changes in the energy sector, the relative importance of environmental protection, and the degree of globalization (Appendix 1 in ESM).…”

“…To quantify baseline soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks within the Rangeland Coalition focus area and separately for the case study watersheds, we used the top 20 cm SOC output variable from the USGS assessment Zhu and Reed 2012). Baseline SOC was derived from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Soil Survey Geographic Database (SSURGO) at 250-m resolution to generate a map of ecologically active stocks of soil organic carbon (SOC) near the surface (0-20 cm depths) (Bliss 2003).…”

Effects of land use on greenhouse gas fluxes and soil properties of wetland catchments in the Prairie Pothole Region of North America

“…Research associated with quantifying and modeling carbon pools (Tans et al, 1990;Fan et al, 1998;Pacala et al, 2001) has resulted in more refined efforts to segregate the terrestrial portion into major constituents such as soils, forests, agricultural lands, and inland aquatic ecosystems (Ciais et al, 1995;Houghton et al, 1999;Pacala et al, 2001;Bridgham et al, 2006Bridgham et al, , 2013Euliss et al, 2006;CCSP, 2007;Sundquist et al, 2009;Zhu et al, 2010Zhu et al, , 2011Zhu and Reed, 2012;Byrd et al, 2013). As data have become available and coarse-scale models refined, a variety of studies have recognized the contribution of inland aquatic ecosystems (e.g., wetlands, peatlands, reservoirs) to the terrestrial carbon budget (Armentano and Menges, 1986;Gorham, 1991;Algesten et al, 2003;Bridgham et al, 2006Bridgham et al, , 2013Cole et al, 2007;Downing et al, 2008;Battin et al, 2009).…”

Baseline and projected future carbon storage and greenhouse-gas fluxes in ecosystems of the eastern United States

“…How might the stored carbon and carbon fluxes be affected by the natural and anthropogenic processes that control their storage and release in the ecosystems of the Eastern United States? Results and analyses provided in this report, as well as the previous two reports covering the Great Plains (Zhu and others, 2011) and Western (Zhu and Reed, 2012) regions of the United States, pertain to the first question and parts of the second question (because not all processes were exhaustively analyzed and presented). Results pertaining to the natural vegetation change under future climate change are not within the purview of this report.…”