Land Use and the Carbon Cycle

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.

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.