About the Book
As governments and institutions work to ameliorate the effects of anthropogenic CO2 emissions on global climate, there is an increasing need to understand how land-use and land-cover change is coupled to the carbon cycle, and how land management can be used to mitigate their effects. This book brings an interdisciplinary team of fifty-eight international researchers to share their novel approaches, concepts, theories and knowledge on land use and the carbon cycle. It discusses contemporary theories and approaches combined with state-of-the-art technologies. The central theme is that land use and land management are tightly integrated with the carbon cycle and it is necessary to study these processes as a single natural-human system to improve carbon accounting and mitigate climate change. The book is an invaluable resource for advanced students, researchers, land-use planners and policy makers in natural resources, geography, forestry, agricultural science, ecology, atmospheric science and environmental economics.
Table of Contents:
Preface Tony Janetos and Chris Field; Part I. Introduction: 1. Linking land use and the carbon cycle Derek T. Robinson, Daniel G. Brown, Nancy H. F. French and Bradley C. Reed; 2. An introduction to carbon cycle science Galina Churkina; 3. The contribution of land-use and land-use change to the carbon cycle R. A. Houghton; 4. An economic analysis of the effect of land use on terrestrial carbon storage Robert Mendelsohn; Part II. Measurement and Modeling: 5. Remote sensing for mapping and modeling land-based carbon flux and storage Nancy H. F. French, Laura. L. Bourgeau-Chavez, Michael J. Falkowski, Scott Goetz, Liza K. Jenkins, Richard B. Powell, Philip Camill and Collin S. Roesler; 6. Identifying geographical sources and sinks of carbon from atmospheric observations A. M. Michalak; 7. Overview of current limitations, challenges, and solutions to integrating carbon dynamics with land-use models Tom P. Evans, Mikaela Schmitt-Harsh and Derek T. Robinson; 8. Modeling for integrating science and management Virginia H. Dale and Keith L. Kline; Part III. Integrated Science and Research Applications: 9. Carbon emissions from land-use change: model estimates using three different datasets Atul Jain, Prasanth Meiyappan and Tosha Richardson; 10. A system to integrate multi-scaled data sources for improving terrestrial carbon balance estimates Jordan Golinkoff and Steve Running; 11. Simulating biogeochemical impacts of historical land-use changes in the U.S. Great Plains from 1870 to 2003 William J. Parton, Myron P. Gutmann, Melannie D. Hartman, Emily R. Merchant, Susan M. Lutz and Stephen J. DelGrosso; 12. Carbon signatures of development patterns along a gradient of urbanization Marina Alberti and Lucy Hutyra; Part IV. Land Policy, Management, and the Carbon Cycle: 13. Managing carbon: ecological limits and constraints R. César Izaurralde, Wilfred M. Post and Tristram O. West; 14. Effects of wildland fire management on carbon stores Matthew D. Hurteau; 15. Soil carbon dynamics in agricultural systems Cynthia A. Cambardella and Jerry L. Hatfield; 16. U.S. policies and greenhouse gas mitigation in agriculture Carol Adaire Jones, Cynthia J. Nickerson and Nancy Cavallaro; 17. Opportunities and challenges for offsetting greenhouse gas emissions with forests Sandra Brown and Timothy Pearson; 18. Opportunities and challenges for carbon management on U.S. public lands Lisa Dilling, Richard Birdsey and Yude Pan; 19. Design and planning of residential landscapes to manage the carbon cycle: invention and variation in land use and land cover Lauren Lesch Marshall and Joan I. Nassauer; Part V. Synthesis and Future Directions: 20. Forests, carbon, and the global environment: new directions in research David L. Skole, Jay Samek, Michael Smalligan, Walter Chomentowski and Oscar Castaneda; 21. Carbon cycle sustainability and land use Dennis Ojima, Josep G. Canadell, Richard Conant, Christine Negra and Petra Tschakert; 22. Synthesis, lessons, and what the future holds Daniel G. Brown, Nancy H. F. French, Bradley C. Reed and Derek T. Robinson.
About the Author :
Daniel G. Brown is a Professor in the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan. His work, published in over 100 peer-reviewed publications, aims to understand human-environment interactions through a focus on land-use and land-cover changes, modelling these changes, and spatial analysis and remote sensing methods for characterizing landscape patterns. He has chaired the Land Use Steering Group under the auspices of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, and has served as a member of the Carbon Cycle Steering Group, the NASA Land Cover and the Land Use Change Science Team, and on a variety of panels for the National Research Council, NASA, the National Science Foundation and the European Research Council. He has served on the editorial boards for the journals Landscape Ecology; Computers, Environment and Urban Systems; and Land Use Science. In 2009, he was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Derek T. Robinson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Management at the University of Waterloo. Dr Robinson has been developing and publishing land-use research using geographical information science (GIS) and agent-based modelling approaches for ten years, which includes substantive contributions to research projects in Europe and North America. His research typically involves using agent-based models to integrate geographical information systems (GISystems) and ecological and human decision-making models to evaluate how socio-economic contexts and policy scenarios effect changes in land use, ecological function and human well-being. Nancy French is a Senior Scientist at the Michigan Tech Research Institute, Michigan Technological University. Dr French has been working on applications of remote sensing to ecology and vegetation studies for over twenty years. Her primary interests are in the study of forest ecosystems and the application of remote sensing and geospatial analysis techniques to ecosystem studies. She serves on the editorial board and as an Assistant Editor for the International Journal of Wildland Fire. She is a member of the North American Carbon Program Science Steering Group and serves on the NASA Carbon Monitoring System Science Definition Team. She has authored or co-authored 25 journal articles and more than 10 book chapters. Bradley Reed is Associate Program Coordinator in the Geographic Analysis and Monitoring Program of the U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia. Dr Reed has been involved in a number of research endeavours, including development of a global land cover map (DISCover) using Earth observations, developing new methods for characterizing phenology from Earth observation data and assessing biological carbon sequestration for the United States. He worked at the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center for several years. He recently completed an assignment in Geneva, Switzerland as the U.S. representative to the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), where he supported work in the Ecosystems and Biodiversity Societal Benefit Areas.
Review :
'One striking feature of this timely book is that all 22 chapters are synthetic and backed by solid empirical evidence and/or conceptual illustrations and statements. It is the most recent update on carbon cycle science … Highly recommended.' J. Chen, Choice
