North American Carbon Program (NACP)
Forest Inventory Analysis (FIA)
- Carbon cycling in forests represents a key point of interaction between terrestrial ecosystems and the earth’s climate. As a result, efforts to quantify and enhance forest carbon sequestration have become important goals of U.S. Forest Service and the University of New Hampshire. Although the basic principles of how forests cycle and store carbon are reasonably well understood, there are large uncertainties surrounding underlying environmental drivers and efforts to extend estimates through space and time have been hampered by persistent methodological challenges.
- Objectives: (1) improve landscape-scale assessment of the effects of climate variability, and natural and management disturbances, on ecosystem demographics and carbon stocks and fluxes, (2) develop a monitoring approach and establish permanent monitoring locations at Experimental Forests for early detection of impacts of climate change on ecosystem processes and function.
- Specific Studies: (1) Determine changes in key forest carbon pools over time, (2) Monitor changes of forest health, (3) Monitor climate to establish relationships between changes in forest C and climate change, (4) Measure water isotopes to determine how climate influences plant water use efficiency.