Wallin, David O.; Harmon, Mark E.; Cohen, Warren B.; Fiorella, Maria; Ferrell, William K. 1996. Use of remote sensing to model land use effects on carbon flux in forests of the Pacific Northwest, USA. In: Gholz, H. L.; Nakane, K.; Shimoda, H., eds. The use of remote sensing in the modeling of forest productivity. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers: 219-237.
Reducing the uncertainty in the global carbon (C) budget will require betterinformation on regional C budgets. We discuss the use of a simple "metamodel," inconjunction with satellite data, to quantify C flux from a 12,000-km2 forestland studyarea in Oregon. The model tracks C storage in living, detrital and forest productspools. Between 1972 and 1991, total C flux from this study area to the atmosphere was
estimated to average 1.13 Mg hal yr-1, with values ranging from -4.7 to +15.8 Mg ha-I-1
yr . This spatial variability was related to site quality, land use and historical factors.
These results are used to illustrate the natural and anthropogenic sources ofheterogeneity that can influence C budgets at the regional scale and to demonstratehow remotely sensed data can be used to help quantify this heterogeneity.