Carbon, Vegetation Dynamics and Landscape-Scale Processes

Carbon, Vegetation Dynamics and Landscape-Scale Processes

The department carries out a broad array of research focused on monitoring vegetation dynamics, with a particular focus on mapping and studying human and natural disturbances and their landscape-scale impacts, as well as changes to the earth surface as a result of climate variability.  

This research involves integration of field-based research with remotely-sensed observations to address key scientific uncertainties. Alterations to the global carbon cycle are changing atmospheric composition and climate with implications for human well-being and a particular focus of our research is on monitoring and modeling the terrestrial carbon cycle with unprecedented sophistication and resolution. 

Stay tuned for more information about projects and researchers.

Project Name
Project Sponsor
Principal Investigator
Campus Forest Carbon Project
UMD Sustainability Fund
Lamb, Rachel
Land degradation - Local NPP Scaling Maps
Prince, Stephen D.
Land Degradation - Background
NASA
Prince, Stephen D.
Agricultural Land Use Change in Central and Northeast Thailand: Effects on Biomass Emissions, Soil Quality, and Rural Livelihoods
NASA
An online application for decision support in siting woody-biomass to electricity facilities
California Energy Commission (CEC)
System for Advanced Biofuels Production from Woody Biomass in the Pacific Northwest
University of California-Davis (Primary sponsor: USDA-NIFA)
Total Carbon Estimation in African Mangroves and Coastal Wetlands in Preparation for REDD and Blue Carbon Credits
NASA
Linking carbon and water dynamics in the pursuit of predicting peat collapse in coastal blue carbon wetlands
NASA
Cropland Carbon Monitoring System (CCMS): A satellite-based system to estimate carbon fluxes on U.S croplands
NASA
NASA South/Southeast Asia Research Initiative (SARI)
NASA

Stubbs, Q., Yeo, I.-Y., Lang, M., Townshend, J., Sun, L., Prestegaard, K., Jantz, C., 2020. Assessment of wetland change on the Delmarva Peninsula from 1984 to 2010. Journal of Coastal Research (IF = 1.053), vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 575–589.
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Gao, X., Liang, S., Sauer, J. (2020). Greening hiatus in Eurasian boreal forests since 1997 caused by a wetting and cooling summer climate, Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences
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Shen W, Mao X, He J, Dong J, Huang C, Li M. (2020) Understanding Current and Future Fragmentation Dynamics of Urban Forest Cover in the Nanjing Laoshan Region of Jiangsu, China. Remote Sens. 2020, 12, 155.
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He J, Loboda TV, Jenkins L, Chen D. (2020). ABoVE: Distribution Maps of Wildland Fire Fuel Components across Alaskan Tundra, 2015. ORNL DAAC, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA.
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Powell, E. B., Krause, J. R., Martin, R. M., & Watson, E. B. (2020). Pond excavation reduces coastal wetland carbon dioxide assimilation. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences.
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Boschetti, L.; Roy, D.P.; Giglio, L.; Huang, H.; Zubkova, M.; Humber, M.L., “Global validation of the Collection 6 MODIS burned area product,” Remote Sensing of Environment. In Press.
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Ying, Q., M. C. Hansen, L. Sun, L. Wang, M. Steininger. 2019. “Satellite-detected gain in built-up area as a leading economic indicator.” Environmental Research Letters (2018 IF: 6.192). vol. 14, article no. 114015.
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Tang, H., Armston, J., Hancock, S., Marselis, S., Goetz, S., Dubayah, R. (2019) Characterizing global forest canopy cover distribution using spaceborne lidar. Remote Sensing of Environment 231
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Marselis, SM, Tang, H, Armston, J, Abernethy, K, Alonso, A, Barbier, N, Bissiengou, P, Jeffery, K, Kenfack, D, Labriere, N, Lee, SK, Lewis, SL, Memiaghe, H, Poulsen, JR, White, L, Dubayah, R (2019) Exploring the relation between remotely sensed vertical
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