Wallin, D.O., Harmon, M.E., Cohen, W.B., Fiorella, M. and Ferrell, W.K. 1996a. Use of remote sensing to model land use effects on carbon flux in forests of the Pacific Northwest, USA. -- Pages 219- 237 In: Gholz, H.L., Nakane, K. and Shimoda, H. (eds). The use of remote sensing in the modeling of forest productivity at scales from the stand to the globe. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands. ISBN 0-7923-4278-X

Reducing the uncertainty in the global carbon budget will require better information on regional carbon budgets. We discuss the use of a simple "metamodel", in conjunction with satellite data, to quantify carbon flux from a 12,000 km2, forest-land study area in Oregon. The model tracks carbon storage in living, detrital and forest products pools. Between 1972 and 1991, total carbon flux from this study area to the atmosphere averaged 1.13 Mg/ha/yr with values ranging from -4.7 to +15.8 Mg/ha/yr. This spatial variability was related to site quality, landuse and historical factors. These results are used to illustrate the natural and anthropogenic sources of heterogeneity that can influence carbon budgets at the regional scale and how remotely sensed data can be used to help quantify this heterogeneity.