LCARE (Landscape carbon accumulation through reductions in emissions)

The PDF research will consist of two main tasks. The first task will be to assess carbon stocks in soils, terrestrial vegetation, and lake sediments from the 1970s to present-day around the Sudbury region. This task will involve using remotely-sensed imagery (Landsat, MODIS) validated with targeted ground-truthing collected as part of the broader L-CARE project in 2018/19. There will also be the potential to add LiDAR and hyperspectral imagery to the workflow to improve forest and soil/lake carbon stock estimation. The PDF will spend the first 6 months in Canada collating the remote sensing and ground data with collaborators at the Living with Lakes Centre, and the remaining time will be visiting collaborators at Cambridge University for help analyzing and processing the remote sensing data. The second task will use the present-day inventory data to develop and validate a spatially-explicit mechanistic ecosystem model at a regional scale with which we can forecast how future investments in pollution control and carbon capture should be prioritized under different climate and land use scenarios.

Faculty Supervisor:

John Gunn

Student:

Partner:

University of Cambridge

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Education

University:

Laurentian University

Program: