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The net ecosystem carbon exchange of human-modified environments in the Australian Capital Region

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Abstract

As part of a larger study to quantify and map ecosystem services in southeast Australia, we estimated carbon stored in biomass and soils and the net ecosystem carbon exchange between the land surface and the atmosphere in the Australian Capital Region (ACR). Our aim was to understand and quantify how different human-modified landscapes provide an essential ecosystem service: the exchange and storage of carbon in the landscape. Using a remote sensing based modelling methodology, we obtained values of Net Primary Productivity (NPP), total carbon in soil and biomass and carbon turnover from meteorological and terrain inputs and vegetation attributes. We obtained a set of maps of NPP, total carbon (C) storage and C-turnover for the ACR. We superimposed a land use/cover map to assign the uptake, storage and release of carbon to different land use/cover types. Our results support the hypothesis that human-intensive land uses significantly affect the ability of terrestrial ecosystems to provide an important ecosystem service in the form of carbon storage.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the external reviewers and editor of the journal for their help to improve this manuscript. We are grateful to Juan Pablo Guerschman, Matt Paget, Sonya Duss, David Dumaresq and people of the ANU WildCountry Research and Policy Hub for their help and comments. We also thank Robert Waterworth from the National Carbon Accounting System and Linda Gregory from CSIRO Land and Water for their suggestions and Clive Hilliker for his help with maps design. MODIS data were distributed by the Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LPDAAC) with support from the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA). Final data products were processed/re-formatted by CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research (CMAR) using the MODIS Reprojection Tool (‘mrtmosaic’, ‘resample’) and in-house software.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 0200, Australia

    Luciana Laura Porfirio & Sandra L. Berry

  2. The Climate Change Institute, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 0200, Australia

    Will Steffen

  3. Centre for Water in the Minerals Industry, Centre for Mined Land Rehabilitation, Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, 4072, Australia

    Damian J. Barrett

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  1. Luciana Laura Porfirio
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Correspondence to Luciana Laura Porfirio.

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Porfirio, L.L., Steffen, W., Barrett, D.J. et al. The net ecosystem carbon exchange of human-modified environments in the Australian Capital Region. Reg Environ Change 10, 1–12 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-008-0081-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-008-0081-5

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