South, S. and J. Qi
Presented at the All Scientist Meeting (2002-10-04 )
Although a large carbon sink was found to be related to the enhanced growth in the North America using satellite observations, the global carbon budget is still unbalanced. In search for additional carbon sinks or sources, attention is now turned to the roles of land use and land cover changes. Previous studies suggest that by managing agricultural lands appropriately substantial carbon can also be stored in no-till farmlands. Should know exactly the total areas of no-till managed agricultural lands, total amount of carbon sequestrated by no-till agricultural lands can be estimated. However, to what magnitude is the no-till management being practiced in Michigan and in the entire US is still unclear. In this study, we extend the previous studies on carbon sequestration by quantifying the total amount of no-till agricultural lands using satellite remote sensing images. Satellite images were acquired in the early Spring 2002 and no-till agricultural lands being classed with intensive ground survey data. The results showed that we could estimate the total amount of no-till agricultural lands at a 90% accuracy, allowing quantitative estimates of the carbon sequestration over large areas.
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