Terrestrial Carbon Information System (Terra C)

• Research Team
• Time
• Funding Source
• Motivation
• Objectives
• Results

Research Team

PI:
Sabine Grunwald, Soil and Water Science Department, University of Florida

Co-PIs:
Timothy A. Martin, School of Forest Resources and Conservation, University of Florida

Post-Doc:
Gustavo M. Vasques, Soil and Water Science Department, University of Florida


Programmer:
Brandon Hoover

Time: 09/2009 to 09/2013

Funding Source: Florida Energy Systems Consortium (FESC)

Motivation

Rising CO2 emissions in the atmosphere and effects on global climate change have been well documented, and future impacts are uncertain but potentially devastating. Florida's natural and agro-forest ecosystems have much potential to sequester carbon in biomass and soils due to unique climatic and landscape conditions. However, research gaps exist to accurately assess carbon pools and fluxes at coarse scales, ranging from county to the region and larger. The overarching objective of this project is to address these obstacles by creating a database infrastructure for the carbon science community, focused on ecosystems in Florida and the southeastern United States.  The database will be administered through the UF Carbon Resources Science Center, a multi-disciplinary Center dedicated to research in support of enhanced agricultural and natural resource carbon management. In addition to applied research, basic research remains necessary to quantify carbon pools and fluxes for many ecosystems, and to understand how perturbations such as land use change or climatic factors impact carbon balance.

UF Carbon Resources Science Center

Objectives

(1) Build the Terra C Information System: Develop a coherent, searchable, and expandable database that integrates terrestrial carbon and associated environmental datasets and provides information about carbon related to environmental stressors such as climate and land use change

(2) Data synthesis: Conduct a synthesis of multiple large carbon datasets to gain insight into carbon cycling and dynamics across various spatial and temporal scales; upscaling of site‐specific carbon observations to landscape scales

(3) Geospatial outreach: Build a ‘GoogleEarth’ application to deliver and share Terra Carbon data on an interactive, geospatial platform. 

Fig. 1. Architecture of Terra C Information System.

Results (in progress)

Publications:

Oral and poster presentations:

Hoover B., S. Grunwald, T.A. Martin, G.M. Vasques, N.M. Knox, J. Kim, X. Xiong, P. Chaikaew, J. Adewopo, B. Cao and C.W. Ross. 2011. The Terrestrial Carbon (Terra C) Information System to facilitate carbon synthesis across heterogeneous landscapes No. 264-10. Symposia Spatial Predictions in Soils, Crops and Agro/Forest/Urban/Wetland Ecosystems, ASA-CSSA-SSSA Int. Meeting, San Antonio, TX, Oct. 16-19, 2011.

Hoover B., N.M. Knox, S. Grunwald, T.A. Martin, X. Xiong, P. Chaikaew, J. Kim and B. Cao. 2011. Synthesis tools for carbon assessment in ecosystems. Florida Energy Systems Consortium Summit, Gainesville, FL, Sept. 27-28, 2011.

Hoover B., G.M. Vasques, B. Zhong, S. Grunwald, T.A. Martin and D.L. Jr. DePatie. 2010. The Terrestrial Carbon (TerraC) Information System Vers. 1.0. Soil and Water Science Research Forum, Gainesville, FL, Sept. 10, 2010.

Grunwald S., T.A. Martin, G.M. Vasques and B. Hoover. 2009. Database infrastructure for integrative carbon science research. Florida Energy Systems Consortium Summit, Tampa, FL, Sept. 29-30, 2009.