UMaine researchers developing carbon monitoring network for Acadian Forest Region
University of Maine researchers are developing a forest landscape model to monitor sources of carbon in the Acadian Forest Region in the northeastern U.S. and maritime Canada, as well as any changes in them.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) awarded $940,308 for the three-year project from researchers in the Center for Research on Sustainable Forests and School of Forest Resources. Daniel Hayes, director of the Barbara Wheatland Geospatial Analysis Laboratory, will lead the project team along with Aaron Weiskittel, director of the Center for Research on Sustainable Forests, and School of Forest Resources researchers Erin Simons-Legaard and Kasey Legaard.
UMaine investigators will work with the U.S. Forest Service, Canadian Forest Service and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center to develop a monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) system to track stocks and fluxes among all major carbon pools in the managed forest sector. The model-data framework leverages several NASA assets and remote sensing sources, from the Landsat satellite image record to airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) acquisitions over the region.
Read more about the project online.