Mapping the country's changing biomass

Government Computer News
By Patrick Marshall
Feb 23, 2009

There are a lot of reasons to be concerned about how much biomass the country has. For starters, land cover — whether it’s grass or old-growth forest — consumes carbon dioxide, one of the biggest contributors to the greenhouse effect.

Unfortunately, we haven’t had a good idea of how much biomass the country has, and we have even less insight into how much it is changing.

Researchers at the Woods Hole Research Center — an environmental science, education and policy institute with a Cape Cod, Mass., location — are rectifying that situation. Through the National Biomass and Carbon Dataset project, they are using data gathered on space shuttle missions and satellites to produce a map of the country’s biomass.

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