A process-based boreal ecosystem productivity simulator using remote sensing inputs

This paper describes a boreal ecosystems productivity simulator (BEPS) recently developed at the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing to assist in natural resources management and to estimate the carbon budget over Canadian landmass (106–107 km2). BEPS uses principles of FOREST biogeochemical cycles (FOREST-BGC) (Running and Coughlan, 1988) for quantifying the biophysical processes governing ecosystems productivity, but the original model is moth fled to better represent canopy radiation processes. A numerical scheme is developed to integrate different data types: remote sensing data at 1-km resolution in lambert conformal conic projection, daily meteorological data in Gaussian or longitude-latitude grided systems, and soil data grouped in polygons. The processed remote sensing data required in the model are leaf area index (LAI) and land-cover type. The daily meteorological data include air temperature, incoming shortwave radiation, precipitation, and humidity. The soil-data input is the available water-holding capacity. The major outputs of BEPS include spatial fields of net primary productivity (NPP) and evapotranspiration. The NPP calculated by BEPS has been tested against biomass data obtained in Quebec, Canada. A time series o f LAI over the growing season of 1993 in Quebec was derived by using 10-day composite normalized difference vegetation index images acquired by the advanced very high resolution radiometer at 1-km resolution (resampled). Soil polygon data were mosaicked, georeferenced, and rasterized in a geographic information system (ARC/INFO). With the use of the process-based model incorporating all major environmental variables affecting plant growth and development, detailed spatial distributions of NPP (annual and four seasons) in Quebec are shown in this paper. The accuracy of NPP calculation is estimated to be 60% for single pixels and 75% for 3×3 pixel areas (9 km9). The modeled NPP ranges from 0.6 kg C/m2/year at the southern border to 0.01 kg C/m2/year at the northern limit of the province. The total annual NPP in Quebec is estimated to be 0.24 Gt C in 1993, which is about 0.3–0.4% of the global NPP.