Tuesday, February 6, 2007

Imputing Soil Carbon Measurements Across the Landscape.

Charles Perry and Barry Wilson. USDA Forest Service, 1992 Folwell Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55108

While several different forest soil databases exist, only the USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis program is designed to collect and remeasure soils data on a short time interval. This is one component of its Phase-3 monitoring network. There is approximately one plot for every 39 000 ha of forest land. The utility of this data would be greatly improved if more of the landscape could be assigned a meaningful value. In this study, we used imputation techniques to estimate soil carbon storage in the forested part the Lake States (Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota).