SAF National Convention 2018

Presentation 1
Carbon on the Stump: How Forest Carbon Inventories Are Verified and Why it is Important (284)

Case Study
Forest inventories inform a wide variety of business decisions, but in relatively few cases (lump-sum timber sales and forest land sales among them) is inventory quality so crucial as in the world of forest carbon offsets, where a forest’s estimated carbon stocking often has a direct link to the amount of monetary compensation granted to the project developer (e.g. a land owner) for sale of carbon offset credits. With carbon credits (i.e. money) on the line, the process of verifying the quality of the forest inventory is an important component of the overall verification process.

A specific responsibility of a verification body (a third-party group hired by the project developer to verify the accuracy of the developer’s carbon assertions) is to verify the accuracy of the inventory, typically by re-visiting a sub-sample of plots established by the project developer. The process used is similar to traditional check cruising, but with some interesting distinctions. Some information will be shared regarding the statistical procedure used to formally assess measurement error in forest carbon inventories, as well as some best practices and lessons learned from almost 10 years of experience in forest carbon inventory verification.

Author
Zane Haxtema
SCS Global Services

Presentation 2
Carbon Opportunities for Forest Landowners and Project Developers: Going for Verification (285)

Case Study
This presentation will focus on the verification process for forest carbon offset projects for compliance with the State of California’s cap-and-trade program. These projects are available to forest owners and project developers throughout the United States. SCS Global Services (SCS), the leaders in the verification of Improved Forest Management (IFM) projects, will share best practices for verification and help landowners and others get ready for the verification process. Verification is an essential step in the registration of offset credits under the compliance system. Some have found the process challenging and daunting; we will provide information to help demystify and facilitate the verification process with lessons learned.

Author
Christie Pollet-Young
SCS Global Services

Presentation 3
LiDAR Combined with Landsat Increases the Accuracy and Resolution of Landscape-scale Estimates of Fire Effects (286)

Research
Landsat-based fire severity maps have limited ecological resolution that can hinder assessments of change to specific resources. Therefore, we evaluated the use of pre- and post-fire LiDAR, and combined LiDAR with Landsat-based (RdNBR) estimates, to increase the accuracy and resolution of basal area mortality. We vertically segmented point clouds and performed model selection on spectral and spatial pre- and post-fire LiDAR metrics and their absolute differences. Our top multi-temporal LiDAR model included change in mean intensity values 2-10 m aboveground, the proportion of canopy reflection sum above 10 m, and differences in maximum height. This model reduced root mean squared error (RMSE) and root mean squared prediction error (RMSPE) by 39% and 37%, and bias by 58%. Our top combined model integrated RdNBR with LiDAR return proportions < 2 m aboveground, pre-fire 95% 31 heights and pre-fire return proportions < 2 m aboveground. This model reduced RMSE and RMSPE by 38% and 34%, and bias by 75%. Our results confirm that 3-dimensional spectral and spatial information from multi-temporal LiDAR can isolate disturbance effects on specific ecological resources with higher accuracy and ecological resolution than Landsat-based estimates, offering a new frontier in landscape scale estimates of fire effects.

Author
Michael Hoe
SCS Global Services

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