1 00:00:02,460 --> 00:00:03,633 Thanks for the intro. 2 00:00:05,220 --> 00:00:07,140 We'll jump right into it here. 3 00:00:07,140 --> 00:00:10,590 So, a little background for this work, 4 00:00:10,590 --> 00:00:13,260 and really why would we need 5 00:00:13,260 --> 00:00:17,100 fine scale carbon accounting at all. 6 00:00:17,100 --> 00:00:21,810 In New York State, a big legislation was passed, 7 00:00:21,810 --> 00:00:25,202 the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019, 8 00:00:25,202 --> 00:00:27,480 which is a bundle of energy, sustainability, 9 00:00:27,480 --> 00:00:28,743 climate legislation. 10 00:00:29,850 --> 00:00:31,080 And in that bundle, 11 00:00:31,080 --> 00:00:33,912 they set really, really aggressive emissions targets, 12 00:00:33,912 --> 00:00:36,510 the state's planning to be net zero by 2050, 13 00:00:37,470 --> 00:00:41,460 and they're looking to offset 15% of the statewide emissions 14 00:00:41,460 --> 00:00:42,333 in some way. 15 00:00:43,272 --> 00:00:46,200 With 60% of the state being forested, 16 00:00:46,200 --> 00:00:49,110 policy makers are really gonna be leaning 17 00:00:49,110 --> 00:00:51,090 on the forest carbon sink, 18 00:00:51,090 --> 00:00:53,610 they're expecting it, or depending on it to more than double 19 00:00:53,610 --> 00:00:55,020 in the next 30 years, 20 00:00:55,020 --> 00:00:58,680 which we know to be a tall, tall order, 21 00:00:58,680 --> 00:01:01,290 very likely impossible. 22 00:01:01,290 --> 00:01:03,090 But to this end, 23 00:01:03,090 --> 00:01:06,390 we're trying to help the state understand the where, 24 00:01:06,390 --> 00:01:08,550 the how, and to what extent forests 25 00:01:08,550 --> 00:01:10,680 are gonna be able to contribute here. 26 00:01:10,680 --> 00:01:14,970 And so, you know, like Sarah and the panel talked about, 27 00:01:14,970 --> 00:01:19,290 like we are right at the peak of this hype cycle, 28 00:01:19,290 --> 00:01:24,290 and hopefully this talk is gonna be about 29 00:01:24,630 --> 00:01:27,270 maybe how we can jump over that gap a little bit, 30 00:01:27,270 --> 00:01:30,240 but really being humble about what we're able to do 31 00:01:30,240 --> 00:01:32,313 in this context at a state scale. 32 00:01:34,710 --> 00:01:36,360 So, stock changes, 33 00:01:36,360 --> 00:01:40,623 you know, what is this accounting method in general, right? 34 00:01:41,820 --> 00:01:42,653 All it really is 35 00:01:42,653 --> 00:01:44,490 is about changes between two points in time. 36 00:01:44,490 --> 00:01:46,590 So as trees grow, 37 00:01:46,590 --> 00:01:48,270 they're pulling carbon outta the atmosphere, 38 00:01:48,270 --> 00:01:51,630 that's assumed to be a removal from the atmosphere. 39 00:01:51,630 --> 00:01:54,750 And if you have a disturbance or a loss 40 00:01:54,750 --> 00:01:57,270 in above ground biomass, that's assumed to be an emission. 41 00:01:57,270 --> 00:02:01,113 And so we're operating at a super coarse level here. 42 00:02:02,940 --> 00:02:04,590 Really, the fate of that woody material 43 00:02:04,590 --> 00:02:05,610 is gonna have a big impact 44 00:02:05,610 --> 00:02:08,250 on the immediacy of those emissions. 45 00:02:08,250 --> 00:02:12,450 Right? Is the wood being transferred to long-lived products, 46 00:02:12,450 --> 00:02:14,910 or is it being burned for fuel right away? 47 00:02:14,910 --> 00:02:16,563 We're above that, right? 48 00:02:17,460 --> 00:02:19,440 For sake of simplicity, and in scale, 49 00:02:19,440 --> 00:02:22,073 we're obscuring those details 50 00:02:22,073 --> 00:02:24,720 and just assuming any losses in aboveground biomass 51 00:02:24,720 --> 00:02:26,400 are gonna be emissions. 52 00:02:26,400 --> 00:02:29,310 So this kind of information, stock change information, 53 00:02:29,310 --> 00:02:33,000 is already implemented at state and national scale 54 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:34,620 by the United States Forest Service, 55 00:02:34,620 --> 00:02:37,203 with their Forest Inventory and Analysis program. 56 00:02:39,030 --> 00:02:41,963 Folks go out and measure trees on the ground, 57 00:02:41,963 --> 00:02:43,800 and they repeat those measurements 58 00:02:43,800 --> 00:02:45,303 every five to seven years. 59 00:02:46,890 --> 00:02:48,960 That information is absolutely invaluable, 60 00:02:48,960 --> 00:02:51,120 we couldn't do this kind of thing without it, 61 00:02:51,120 --> 00:02:53,730 it's one of the best programs in the world 62 00:02:53,730 --> 00:02:55,380 for that kind of thing, 63 00:02:55,380 --> 00:02:56,820 but it's limited by the density 64 00:02:56,820 --> 00:02:59,190 of that sample spatially, right? 65 00:02:59,190 --> 00:03:00,270 There's only one plot 66 00:03:00,270 --> 00:03:02,970 for every 6,000 acres in New York, 67 00:03:02,970 --> 00:03:05,610 and you're limited temporally by that remeasurement cycle, 68 00:03:05,610 --> 00:03:07,050 five to seven years. 69 00:03:07,050 --> 00:03:09,861 So we're trying to translate these measurements 70 00:03:09,861 --> 00:03:13,110 into a map space, into wall to wall maps, 71 00:03:13,110 --> 00:03:17,010 and we're trying to do it at an annual time-step, 72 00:03:17,010 --> 00:03:19,560 going back in time to 1990, which is our baseline. 73 00:03:19,560 --> 00:03:22,350 The idea being that you could take any parcel of land, 74 00:03:22,350 --> 00:03:23,760 any unit of land, 75 00:03:23,760 --> 00:03:25,920 and get this stock change information 76 00:03:25,920 --> 00:03:28,530 for any slice of time in this 30 year period 77 00:03:28,530 --> 00:03:30,033 from 1990 up until now. 78 00:03:30,870 --> 00:03:33,330 That's the big goal here. 79 00:03:33,330 --> 00:03:35,373 So what are we doing specifically? 80 00:03:36,510 --> 00:03:40,710 We are leveraging the above ground biomass measurements 81 00:03:40,710 --> 00:03:42,720 at FIA plots across New York State, 82 00:03:42,720 --> 00:03:46,350 and we're combining that with Landsat satellite imagery, 83 00:03:46,350 --> 00:03:49,500 which offers that historical perspective, importantly, 84 00:03:49,500 --> 00:03:52,950 and offers that regular, in our case, annual, set of data. 85 00:03:52,950 --> 00:03:55,290 So both of these things, 86 00:03:55,290 --> 00:03:59,070 federally funded, really well supported, widely adopted, 87 00:03:59,070 --> 00:04:02,250 and there's a whole host of open source tooling 88 00:04:02,250 --> 00:04:06,480 and existing applications that have made this possible. 89 00:04:06,480 --> 00:04:09,120 And so we relate these things spatially, 90 00:04:09,120 --> 00:04:11,580 and we train models based on these relationships 91 00:04:11,580 --> 00:04:13,770 to make predictions statewide 92 00:04:13,770 --> 00:04:15,150 where we have Landsat information 93 00:04:15,150 --> 00:04:16,700 but we don't have measurements. 94 00:04:17,640 --> 00:04:20,850 So some nuts and bolts here, quickly. 95 00:04:20,850 --> 00:04:24,903 We used 2000 FIA plots, inventoried since 2002, 96 00:04:26,190 --> 00:04:29,280 that gets at Charlotte's point about, right, 97 00:04:29,280 --> 00:04:32,310 we kind of have this missing piece of historical data 98 00:04:32,310 --> 00:04:33,723 before 2000. 99 00:04:35,310 --> 00:04:36,150 Plots were inventoried, 100 00:04:36,150 --> 00:04:38,580 but the methods are not the same, 101 00:04:38,580 --> 00:04:40,500 and so they don't really match up, 102 00:04:40,500 --> 00:04:43,263 so we're stuck using post-2000 data. 103 00:04:44,580 --> 00:04:46,020 Landsat spectral indices, 104 00:04:46,020 --> 00:04:49,080 which are various combinations of red, green, blue, 105 00:04:49,080 --> 00:04:51,960 and near infrared imagery, 106 00:04:51,960 --> 00:04:53,793 use topographic and climatic data. 107 00:04:55,110 --> 00:04:57,450 Right, this is pretty coarse information, 108 00:04:57,450 --> 00:05:01,530 especially compared to what the last talk was talking about, 109 00:05:01,530 --> 00:05:04,743 right, we don't have any diameter diversity information. 110 00:05:05,700 --> 00:05:07,320 This is what we have wall to wall, 111 00:05:07,320 --> 00:05:09,360 and so that's what we have to use. 112 00:05:09,360 --> 00:05:12,540 We feed all this information into a set of models 113 00:05:12,540 --> 00:05:13,950 that we ensemble together. 114 00:05:13,950 --> 00:05:17,460 The idea being, right, we're taking three individual models 115 00:05:17,460 --> 00:05:20,190 that are all making their own predictions, 116 00:05:20,190 --> 00:05:22,320 and we average them together in a sense, 117 00:05:22,320 --> 00:05:24,120 hopefully getting us 118 00:05:24,120 --> 00:05:25,500 something that's closer to the true value 119 00:05:25,500 --> 00:05:28,623 than any of these individual models produce on their own. 120 00:05:29,820 --> 00:05:33,060 And so, right, we got our models, we can make maps, 121 00:05:33,060 --> 00:05:36,450 but then we compare them back to a set of FIA plots 122 00:05:36,450 --> 00:05:38,910 that were not part of this modeling framework, 123 00:05:38,910 --> 00:05:40,620 that are independent in that regard, 124 00:05:40,620 --> 00:05:43,803 to get a sense of how accurate our predictions are. 125 00:05:44,776 --> 00:05:48,060 So if we do that, we get this kind of scatter plot. 126 00:05:48,060 --> 00:05:51,630 So comparing our predictions at FIA plots 127 00:05:51,630 --> 00:05:53,160 to the measurements at FIA plots. 128 00:05:53,160 --> 00:05:55,830 And, right, the biggest thing that jumps out 129 00:05:55,830 --> 00:05:58,410 is this wall, this like, saturation point, 130 00:05:58,410 --> 00:06:02,340 that 200 metric tons per hectare of above ground biomass, 131 00:06:02,340 --> 00:06:04,440 beyond which our model can't make predictions. 132 00:06:04,440 --> 00:06:07,240 That's that saturation problem that Collin talked about, 133 00:06:08,610 --> 00:06:10,593 and it's problematic, right? 134 00:06:12,150 --> 00:06:15,090 Imagine a forest is continuing to grow, 135 00:06:15,090 --> 00:06:19,320 but our models can't see that because of this problem. 136 00:06:19,320 --> 00:06:22,740 And really it's about the spectral signature, 137 00:06:22,740 --> 00:06:26,130 the color of a forest, is saturating or maxing out 138 00:06:26,130 --> 00:06:29,490 well before the size of that forest is gonna max out. 139 00:06:29,490 --> 00:06:31,410 So it's sort of an inherent problem 140 00:06:31,410 --> 00:06:35,790 to modeling forest structure with spectral information. 141 00:06:35,790 --> 00:06:39,180 And then generally looking at some of our error metrics, 142 00:06:39,180 --> 00:06:40,890 it's quite a bit of error. 143 00:06:40,890 --> 00:06:43,890 40% relative root mean squared error, 144 00:06:43,890 --> 00:06:46,230 that's relative to the mean FIA value. 145 00:06:46,230 --> 00:06:48,393 30% relative mean absolute error. 146 00:06:50,910 --> 00:06:52,108 That is what it is, 147 00:06:52,108 --> 00:06:54,300 that's what we're dealing with here. 148 00:06:54,300 --> 00:06:57,240 The mean error, which is just average plus or minus, 149 00:06:57,240 --> 00:06:58,863 is actually pretty good. 150 00:06:59,850 --> 00:07:01,530 The idea being that if you're pooling 151 00:07:01,530 --> 00:07:02,910 a bunch of these predictions up, right, 152 00:07:02,910 --> 00:07:05,070 you have misses below and misses above, 153 00:07:05,070 --> 00:07:06,750 they're gonna average out 154 00:07:06,750 --> 00:07:09,930 and get something pretty close to the true value, hopefully. 155 00:07:09,930 --> 00:07:13,230 So we can push maps statewide, 156 00:07:13,230 --> 00:07:14,910 like the one I'm showing here, 157 00:07:14,910 --> 00:07:16,860 it's just a single year in time, 158 00:07:16,860 --> 00:07:19,920 and it's pretty hard to gather any meaningful insights 159 00:07:19,920 --> 00:07:21,423 spatially at this scale, 160 00:07:22,320 --> 00:07:23,729 but I just wanted to show that. 161 00:07:23,729 --> 00:07:26,370 You know, we can do this statewide, before I zoom down 162 00:07:26,370 --> 00:07:30,270 way into Huntington Wildlife Forest in Newcomb, New York, 163 00:07:30,270 --> 00:07:31,500 which is in Adirondacks there, 164 00:07:31,500 --> 00:07:33,453 situated within that black box. 165 00:07:34,320 --> 00:07:36,570 So, zoomed in, again, 166 00:07:36,570 --> 00:07:40,350 we have a year's worth of aboveground biomass predictions 167 00:07:40,350 --> 00:07:41,944 for 2015, 168 00:07:41,944 --> 00:07:44,220 we have a LIDAR derived canopy height model there 169 00:07:45,360 --> 00:07:47,610 as just added reference information 170 00:07:47,610 --> 00:07:50,070 to try to get a sense for how well our predictions 171 00:07:50,070 --> 00:07:54,450 are characterizing the structure, 172 00:07:54,450 --> 00:07:56,730 for structure spatially across this landscape. 173 00:07:56,730 --> 00:07:58,500 So, some features to point out 174 00:07:58,500 --> 00:08:00,453 that are that are perhaps interesting. 175 00:08:01,320 --> 00:08:05,820 You can see that pocket of really tall vegetation 176 00:08:05,820 --> 00:08:06,653 in the canopy height model, 177 00:08:06,653 --> 00:08:10,380 in yellow there in the northeast of the map, 178 00:08:10,380 --> 00:08:12,540 sort of missing from from that set 179 00:08:12,540 --> 00:08:16,230 of above ground biomass predictions there on the left, 180 00:08:16,230 --> 00:08:19,110 right, and that gets at that saturation issue. 181 00:08:19,110 --> 00:08:21,480 And we have this snippet of the high peaks, 182 00:08:21,480 --> 00:08:24,720 with high elevation, low stature vegetation, 183 00:08:24,720 --> 00:08:26,730 that is pretty well captured by our model there, 184 00:08:26,730 --> 00:08:29,490 as well as some of these cadastral boundaries 185 00:08:29,490 --> 00:08:30,870 in the southwest there, 186 00:08:30,870 --> 00:08:33,873 especially that boundary running diagonally along the lake. 187 00:08:35,640 --> 00:08:37,710 To the east of that boundary is is a natural area 188 00:08:37,710 --> 00:08:38,970 in ESS property, 189 00:08:38,970 --> 00:08:41,250 it's primary forest that's never been harvested. 190 00:08:41,250 --> 00:08:44,970 And to the west is a more heavily managed working forest 191 00:08:44,970 --> 00:08:46,827 that we know have been harvested in the past 20 years. 192 00:08:46,827 --> 00:08:49,680 And you can see some of those effects of management there, 193 00:08:49,680 --> 00:08:50,850 as well as those property boundaries 194 00:08:50,850 --> 00:08:53,010 in our prediction service. 195 00:08:53,010 --> 00:08:55,980 So I'm gonna zoom into this working forest 196 00:08:55,980 --> 00:08:57,450 and show you a little bit 197 00:08:57,450 --> 00:08:59,343 of our our time series capabilities, 198 00:09:00,660 --> 00:09:02,400 as opposed to just the single snapshot. 199 00:09:02,400 --> 00:09:05,760 And, of course, Collin scooped this for his presentation, 200 00:09:05,760 --> 00:09:08,010 so it's a bit stale at this point, 201 00:09:08,010 --> 00:09:11,100 but, right, we're mapping year over year, 202 00:09:11,100 --> 00:09:13,203 and then we're totalling up the biomass 203 00:09:13,203 --> 00:09:15,540 in that slice of forest 204 00:09:15,540 --> 00:09:17,820 and showing that as a function of time. 205 00:09:17,820 --> 00:09:21,210 So as that red dot moves, the map's gonna change. 206 00:09:21,210 --> 00:09:22,560 And really what this is getting at is, 207 00:09:22,560 --> 00:09:24,990 this slice of forest is accumulating 208 00:09:24,990 --> 00:09:27,690 above ground biomass in the first 20 years, 209 00:09:27,690 --> 00:09:29,280 followed by a large harvest event, 210 00:09:29,280 --> 00:09:30,390 which you can see pretty well, 211 00:09:30,390 --> 00:09:31,560 and then that period of recovery, 212 00:09:31,560 --> 00:09:35,553 which might be too fast to be realistic, 213 00:09:36,960 --> 00:09:38,400 given what we know. 214 00:09:38,400 --> 00:09:43,400 So this is really nice, this year over year mapping, 215 00:09:43,980 --> 00:09:48,840 but it's actually just the fuel for the stock change, right? 216 00:09:48,840 --> 00:09:50,940 Now that we have every year mapped, 217 00:09:50,940 --> 00:09:53,640 we can take any slice in this time window 218 00:09:53,640 --> 00:09:55,530 and do some differencing. 219 00:09:55,530 --> 00:09:58,830 So, back out to Huntington Wildlife Forest, 220 00:09:58,830 --> 00:10:00,750 I've got some decadal differences here. 221 00:10:00,750 --> 00:10:02,943 So on the far left is that first decade, 222 00:10:03,780 --> 00:10:06,480 2000 aboveground biomass minus 1990, 223 00:10:06,480 --> 00:10:10,380 and second decade in the final 2019 aboveground biomass 224 00:10:10,380 --> 00:10:12,780 minus 2010 aboveground biomass. 225 00:10:12,780 --> 00:10:14,310 Each decade, interestingly, 226 00:10:14,310 --> 00:10:15,600 shows a bit of a different pattern. 227 00:10:15,600 --> 00:10:19,470 So the first, the area is characterized by stability 228 00:10:19,470 --> 00:10:21,360 and biomass accumulation. 229 00:10:21,360 --> 00:10:22,650 Then you see some of those harvests 230 00:10:22,650 --> 00:10:24,550 starting to occur in the southern area 231 00:10:25,470 --> 00:10:27,870 that we saw in that time series movie. 232 00:10:27,870 --> 00:10:30,030 And then finally, in the third decade, 233 00:10:30,030 --> 00:10:32,940 some of those harvests that you saw in the second decade 234 00:10:32,940 --> 00:10:37,200 are starting to recover and accumulate biomass again. 235 00:10:37,200 --> 00:10:39,870 And then just a note, right, 236 00:10:39,870 --> 00:10:43,740 some of this pixel level speckling that you're seeing here, 237 00:10:43,740 --> 00:10:47,610 those could be real small scale disturbances 238 00:10:47,610 --> 00:10:49,200 and changes in the forest, 239 00:10:49,200 --> 00:10:51,510 or it could be noise in our model predictions 240 00:10:51,510 --> 00:10:54,090 based on noise in the satellite data, 241 00:10:54,090 --> 00:10:56,610 so it's important to remember. 242 00:10:56,610 --> 00:11:00,120 So again, back to this working forest slice here 243 00:11:00,120 --> 00:11:01,500 that I showed you, 244 00:11:01,500 --> 00:11:03,210 instead of scale differences, 245 00:11:03,210 --> 00:11:05,370 we're gonna see some annual differences. 246 00:11:05,370 --> 00:11:09,900 So, same map, and now this time series plot is showing you 247 00:11:09,900 --> 00:11:11,010 year over year changes. 248 00:11:11,010 --> 00:11:13,650 So current years above ground biomass 249 00:11:13,650 --> 00:11:16,380 minus the previous years above ground biomass, 250 00:11:16,380 --> 00:11:17,700 anything above that line 251 00:11:17,700 --> 00:11:20,970 is gonna be a net accumulation of biomass, 252 00:11:20,970 --> 00:11:24,780 and anything below that dotted line is gonna be an emission. 253 00:11:24,780 --> 00:11:26,520 So the pattern's the same, 254 00:11:26,520 --> 00:11:27,960 but what this tells us 255 00:11:27,960 --> 00:11:30,570 is that the rate of biomass accumulation 256 00:11:30,570 --> 00:11:35,190 is slowing in the first 20 years as we approach 2010. 257 00:11:35,190 --> 00:11:37,530 You have this large harvest event, 258 00:11:37,530 --> 00:11:38,760 right, with that emission, 259 00:11:38,760 --> 00:11:39,930 and then you have that period 260 00:11:39,930 --> 00:11:43,230 of really rapid recovery and biomass accumulation 261 00:11:43,230 --> 00:11:45,153 in the first five years post harvest, 262 00:11:46,680 --> 00:11:48,930 but that rate of recovery slows down 263 00:11:48,930 --> 00:11:51,080 in the second five years after the harvest. 264 00:11:52,590 --> 00:11:55,980 So I showed off quite a bit of what we can do here, 265 00:11:55,980 --> 00:11:58,443 but I'm trying to be humble, right? 266 00:11:58,443 --> 00:12:00,300 That this is far from perfect, 267 00:12:00,300 --> 00:12:02,070 there's a lot that's missing from this, 268 00:12:02,070 --> 00:12:04,350 and I wanna highlight some of those things. 269 00:12:04,350 --> 00:12:06,900 First, that saturation effect that we talked about, 270 00:12:07,980 --> 00:12:10,583 you kind of can't miss it when you're doing this thing. 271 00:12:11,580 --> 00:12:13,384 Right, a forest could be, 272 00:12:13,384 --> 00:12:16,620 there's a question in the last talk that was asked, right, 273 00:12:16,620 --> 00:12:19,350 are the old growth forests still sequestering carbon, 274 00:12:19,350 --> 00:12:20,280 or are they stagnating? 275 00:12:20,280 --> 00:12:22,950 Like we can't really answer that, 276 00:12:22,950 --> 00:12:26,100 right, once you get up to a high enough point of biomass, 277 00:12:26,100 --> 00:12:29,013 our model is sort of imposing an artificial ceiling, 278 00:12:30,030 --> 00:12:33,723 and so that limits what kind of insights we can gather. 279 00:12:35,070 --> 00:12:37,860 Then this problem of subtle changes, 280 00:12:37,860 --> 00:12:39,273 steady growth and decline. 281 00:12:40,140 --> 00:12:41,550 We think our models are pretty good 282 00:12:41,550 --> 00:12:43,560 at predicting big changes, 283 00:12:43,560 --> 00:12:45,420 like those harvests that we showed, 284 00:12:45,420 --> 00:12:48,300 but when it comes to smaller changes, 285 00:12:48,300 --> 00:12:49,440 were more or less unproven, 286 00:12:49,440 --> 00:12:52,470 especially given that the size of our errors 287 00:12:52,470 --> 00:12:56,220 are going to outpace the actual annual changes 288 00:12:56,220 --> 00:12:58,720 that we would expect to occur in terms of biomass. 289 00:13:00,090 --> 00:13:03,390 Right? That's problematic given that the rates, 290 00:13:03,390 --> 00:13:04,950 the rates are really what matter, 291 00:13:04,950 --> 00:13:06,120 maybe there's some wiggle room there 292 00:13:06,120 --> 00:13:08,010 in terms of what we can do. 293 00:13:08,010 --> 00:13:08,880 And lastly, 294 00:13:08,880 --> 00:13:10,680 there's some pretty strong relationships 295 00:13:10,680 --> 00:13:13,050 that we can derive from above ground biomass 296 00:13:13,050 --> 00:13:14,490 to above ground carbon 297 00:13:14,490 --> 00:13:16,410 and below ground live carbon, 298 00:13:16,410 --> 00:13:19,920 but we're really quite limited when it comes to soil 299 00:13:19,920 --> 00:13:22,020 and litter carbon pools. 300 00:13:22,020 --> 00:13:24,750 Information we're using, the spectral information, 301 00:13:24,750 --> 00:13:26,760 doesn't really get at that, 302 00:13:26,760 --> 00:13:31,533 and there's just different drivers behind those two pools. 303 00:13:32,460 --> 00:13:35,250 And then, you know, some of the upshots here, 304 00:13:35,250 --> 00:13:36,510 some of the upsides of why we think 305 00:13:36,510 --> 00:13:39,963 this is a pretty good first approach for this kind of thing. 306 00:13:41,460 --> 00:13:42,930 It's really cheap and efficient, right? 307 00:13:42,930 --> 00:13:46,983 We're using federally funded data that's free to us, 308 00:13:48,120 --> 00:13:51,630 open source tooling, and we're able to turn around some, 309 00:13:51,630 --> 00:13:54,270 we think are pretty nice products in a few short years, 310 00:13:54,270 --> 00:13:55,653 with a pretty small team. 311 00:13:57,270 --> 00:13:59,280 We're pretty confident that our maps and our models 312 00:13:59,280 --> 00:14:02,820 are representing landscape patterns and processes 313 00:14:02,820 --> 00:14:04,110 at a large scale, 314 00:14:04,110 --> 00:14:05,193 that's really nice. 315 00:14:06,060 --> 00:14:08,940 And then we have this flexible capacity here, 316 00:14:08,940 --> 00:14:13,940 we can zoom way down to a landowner or parcel level, 317 00:14:14,340 --> 00:14:18,990 and we can also zoom out to county scale, township scale, 318 00:14:18,990 --> 00:14:21,690 all using the same set of underlying data, 319 00:14:21,690 --> 00:14:23,400 which is powerful. 320 00:14:23,400 --> 00:14:26,070 And then I've showed you the retrospective capacity, 321 00:14:26,070 --> 00:14:28,200 looking back towards 1990, 322 00:14:28,200 --> 00:14:30,990 but this same framework could be turned around 323 00:14:30,990 --> 00:14:35,130 and used in a monitoring sense as we get more satellite data 324 00:14:35,130 --> 00:14:37,113 and take new FIA emissions. 325 00:14:38,550 --> 00:14:39,720 So then just a couple of thoughts 326 00:14:39,720 --> 00:14:41,913 based on the way the panel discussion went. 327 00:14:43,140 --> 00:14:45,120 Right, like, this is far from perfect, 328 00:14:45,120 --> 00:14:47,970 I hope I've sort of described that, 329 00:14:47,970 --> 00:14:50,943 but the state is asking for this, they want this, 330 00:14:51,870 --> 00:14:54,630 and we're doing our best to give them what they need 331 00:14:54,630 --> 00:14:56,970 while also sticking true to our guns 332 00:14:56,970 --> 00:14:59,700 in terms of the rigor and the accuracy here. 333 00:14:59,700 --> 00:15:02,793 So we're sort of in this push-pull position. 334 00:15:04,290 --> 00:15:07,950 Yeah, thank you all for coming out and listening. 335 00:15:07,950 --> 00:15:08,910 It was fun. 336 00:15:08,910 --> 00:15:12,990 Thanks to the support I've gotten from ESF 337 00:15:12,990 --> 00:15:15,570 the DC FIA program, 338 00:15:15,570 --> 00:15:18,907 and yeah, it's a great opportunity, thank you. 339 00:15:18,907 --> 00:15:22,740 (audience members applauding) 340 00:15:26,550 --> 00:15:27,383 Yeah? 341 00:15:27,383 --> 00:15:28,216 [Attendant] Thanks, Lucas, 342 00:15:28,216 --> 00:15:29,820 that was a really great talk. 343 00:15:29,820 --> 00:15:32,490 I'm wondering if you could expand a little bit? 344 00:15:32,490 --> 00:15:33,450 I think what the state 345 00:15:33,450 --> 00:15:35,160 is also probably really interested in 346 00:15:35,160 --> 00:15:38,340 is what should they do with their forest moving forward? 347 00:15:38,340 --> 00:15:39,173 Yes. 348 00:15:39,173 --> 00:15:40,350 [Attendant] And maybe if they are looking for them 349 00:15:40,350 --> 00:15:42,660 for offsets, for it in setting, 350 00:15:42,660 --> 00:15:44,250 it's what can we do with our forests 351 00:15:44,250 --> 00:15:45,760 to make them suck up more carbon? 352 00:15:45,760 --> 00:15:46,593 Yep. 353 00:15:46,593 --> 00:15:48,930 [Attendant] How do you see the work you're doing 354 00:15:48,930 --> 00:15:51,330 in like, hind-casting, translating, 355 00:15:51,330 --> 00:15:55,749 to confident forecasting or future-casting 356 00:15:55,749 --> 00:15:57,180 of different management actions? 357 00:15:57,180 --> 00:16:01,800 So like, you're layering on now multiple uncertainties. 358 00:16:01,800 --> 00:16:02,790 That's a great question, 359 00:16:02,790 --> 00:16:05,160 and I'm gonna do a bit of hand waving, 360 00:16:05,160 --> 00:16:08,010 as I buried my head in the weeds here 361 00:16:08,010 --> 00:16:09,183 on this side of things. 362 00:16:10,650 --> 00:16:12,990 I think that the golden ticket is 363 00:16:12,990 --> 00:16:15,663 you can look at our data set and say, 364 00:16:16,537 --> 00:16:19,140 "Right, this plot of land was owned by these people, 365 00:16:19,140 --> 00:16:20,220 and this is what they did." 366 00:16:20,220 --> 00:16:21,660 They know what they did, you know, 367 00:16:21,660 --> 00:16:25,080 and here is the above ground biomass and carbon implications 368 00:16:25,080 --> 00:16:25,980 of what they did. 369 00:16:25,980 --> 00:16:29,370 So this data alone isn't gonna answer that question, 370 00:16:29,370 --> 00:16:33,810 we need folks to tell us what they did on their land 371 00:16:33,810 --> 00:16:36,720 to match that up with these outcomes before we can say, 372 00:16:36,720 --> 00:16:38,820 you know, "that was good," "that was bad." 373 00:16:43,560 --> 00:16:45,006 [Attendant 2] Just kind of curious, 374 00:16:45,006 --> 00:16:47,640 the tool that might exist 375 00:16:47,640 --> 00:16:50,820 to kind of see through that saturation point, 376 00:16:50,820 --> 00:16:52,560 you kind of indicated was LIDAR? 377 00:16:52,560 --> 00:16:53,393 Yeah. 378 00:16:53,393 --> 00:16:54,330 [Attendant 2] Is that what you were using 379 00:16:54,330 --> 00:16:56,453 to kind of show the areas activity? 380 00:16:57,752 --> 00:16:59,850 That comparison. 381 00:16:59,850 --> 00:17:00,990 [Attendant 2] And that the issue 382 00:17:00,990 --> 00:17:03,150 with kind of using that as tools, 383 00:17:03,150 --> 00:17:04,860 we don't have full data sets for the state, 384 00:17:04,860 --> 00:17:07,200 we only have maybe one or two snapshots in time. 385 00:17:07,200 --> 00:17:08,500 Yep. 386 00:17:08,500 --> 00:17:09,540 [Attendant 2] What's the potential 387 00:17:09,540 --> 00:17:10,890 for like photo AR using, 388 00:17:10,890 --> 00:17:12,630 like aerial imagery data sets 389 00:17:12,630 --> 00:17:14,790 going back decades over time 390 00:17:14,790 --> 00:17:17,253 to show vegetation heights and correlate that? 391 00:17:18,723 --> 00:17:20,510 So, I think you're talking about like, 392 00:17:20,510 --> 00:17:22,290 is the layering of the imagery, right, 393 00:17:22,290 --> 00:17:23,370 you can get a point cloud? 394 00:17:23,370 --> 00:17:24,203 [Attendant 2] Yeah. 395 00:17:24,203 --> 00:17:26,640 The way I've heard it, as digital aerial photogrammetry, 396 00:17:26,640 --> 00:17:29,370 DAP point clouds, I think it's the same thing. 397 00:17:29,370 --> 00:17:33,663 [Attendant 2] Yeah, just using kind of the stereo imagery 398 00:17:35,730 --> 00:17:37,740 to derive height, vegetation height, 399 00:17:37,740 --> 00:17:40,980 you have a good model of ground elevation, 400 00:17:40,980 --> 00:17:44,160 so now you can just kind of go back in time 401 00:17:44,160 --> 00:17:45,330 looking at vegetation height. 402 00:17:45,330 --> 00:17:50,330 So I've seen that kind of of effort done really recently. 403 00:17:52,320 --> 00:17:53,852 You can get at that, 404 00:17:53,852 --> 00:17:54,900 I'm not sure if you're familiar with NIP, 405 00:17:54,900 --> 00:17:56,880 it's the National Imagery Program, 406 00:17:56,880 --> 00:18:00,663 if you can get the data that's behind that, you can do that. 407 00:18:01,860 --> 00:18:03,690 I don't know how far back. 408 00:18:03,690 --> 00:18:06,810 Right, they're changing, there's different resolutions. 409 00:18:06,810 --> 00:18:08,790 Not every year, but they upgrade, 410 00:18:08,790 --> 00:18:13,290 I really don't know about the hind-casting capabilities 411 00:18:13,290 --> 00:18:14,700 and matching those things up. 412 00:18:14,700 --> 00:18:17,523 But you can get a point cloud from aerial imagery, 413 00:18:18,870 --> 00:18:22,620 not as dense a point cloud from like a true LIDAR sensor, 414 00:18:22,620 --> 00:18:26,160 but you can get a vegetation height pretty accurately 415 00:18:26,160 --> 00:18:28,953 from that kind of sensor. 416 00:18:30,150 --> 00:18:33,060 So, I don't know that I fully answered your question. 417 00:18:33,060 --> 00:18:34,170 [Attendant 2] Yeah, I was just kind of wondering 418 00:18:34,170 --> 00:18:37,350 if it could be a good way to see through that saturation 419 00:18:37,350 --> 00:18:38,970 at older time sets. 420 00:18:38,970 --> 00:18:39,803 Yeah. 421 00:18:39,803 --> 00:18:40,980 I mean that kind of information 422 00:18:40,980 --> 00:18:42,900 is the best for this kind of thing, 423 00:18:42,900 --> 00:18:43,733 we just don't, 424 00:18:43,733 --> 00:18:46,590 like, that was the first thing we did, was use LIDAR, 425 00:18:46,590 --> 00:18:48,540 and we covered 60% of the state. 426 00:18:48,540 --> 00:18:51,810 So, it's a patchwork, right, 427 00:18:51,810 --> 00:18:53,280 this was acquired at this time, 428 00:18:53,280 --> 00:18:55,380 and this was acquired at another time, so. 429 00:18:57,665 --> 00:18:58,530 [Attendant 3] Yes, just a question about, 430 00:18:58,530 --> 00:19:01,860 you did a great job kind of describing the limitations 431 00:19:01,860 --> 00:19:03,840 and general error, 432 00:19:03,840 --> 00:19:05,670 was wondering what your thoughts are 433 00:19:05,670 --> 00:19:08,760 with the, you know, applicability of the data, 434 00:19:08,760 --> 00:19:10,170 at what spatial scale. 435 00:19:10,170 --> 00:19:12,793 So as you know, in New York state, 436 00:19:12,793 --> 00:19:14,730 about 50% of the forest 437 00:19:14,730 --> 00:19:16,950 is owned by family forest landowners. 438 00:19:16,950 --> 00:19:19,560 The ownerships are around the average ownership size, 439 00:19:19,560 --> 00:19:21,180 it's quite small. 440 00:19:21,180 --> 00:19:24,570 You know, do you think that some of these technologies 441 00:19:24,570 --> 00:19:25,770 are gonna be appropriate 442 00:19:25,770 --> 00:19:28,350 at some of those kind of stand based scales 443 00:19:28,350 --> 00:19:29,520 or smaller ownerships? 444 00:19:29,520 --> 00:19:31,377 Yeah, that's a great question, 445 00:19:31,377 --> 00:19:33,113 we've been thinking a lot about that. 446 00:19:35,400 --> 00:19:37,980 Right, our error is all at FIA plots, 447 00:19:37,980 --> 00:19:42,450 and that scale is gonna be the hardest comparison 448 00:19:42,450 --> 00:19:43,283 you can make. 449 00:19:43,283 --> 00:19:45,250 (audience members applauding) 450 00:19:45,250 --> 00:19:46,320 The idea is that as you aggregate up, 451 00:19:46,320 --> 00:19:47,640 right, like I said, 452 00:19:47,640 --> 00:19:50,643 that mean error starts to get closer to zero. 453 00:19:51,480 --> 00:19:55,140 We're really trying to work through 454 00:19:55,140 --> 00:19:56,490 aggregating uncertainties 455 00:19:56,490 --> 00:19:58,890 up from these individual pixel level predictions, 456 00:19:58,890 --> 00:20:02,433 and that's an uncracked nut for us. 457 00:20:03,930 --> 00:20:06,130 But in terms, like, that's why we're making this, 458 00:20:06,130 --> 00:20:08,370 is so that, at a landowner level, 459 00:20:08,370 --> 00:20:10,293 you can get this kind of information. 460 00:20:13,350 --> 00:20:14,183 Yeah. 461 00:20:15,322 --> 00:20:17,370 I don't think I nailed it, 462 00:20:17,370 --> 00:20:22,233 but do you have any follow ups based on that? 463 00:20:23,310 --> 00:20:24,390 [Attendant 3] Yeah, I guess, 464 00:20:24,390 --> 00:20:25,650 no, not necessarily, 465 00:20:25,650 --> 00:20:27,300 but I guess that's just the error is coming, 466 00:20:27,300 --> 00:20:28,980 so I'm just trying to think of like, 467 00:20:28,980 --> 00:20:31,980 how the error is generated, or how you're thinking about it, 468 00:20:31,980 --> 00:20:35,163 whether those individual FIA plots represent, 469 00:20:36,720 --> 00:20:39,120 probably like an acre or a point space, 470 00:20:39,120 --> 00:20:41,760 but then how you're relating that to your model, 471 00:20:41,760 --> 00:20:43,275 which is a 30 by 30 meter. 472 00:20:43,275 --> 00:20:44,356 30 meter, yeah, yeah, yeah. 473 00:20:44,356 --> 00:20:45,189 [Attendant 3] Right. 474 00:20:45,189 --> 00:20:48,030 So like, that's what I'm trying to kind of 475 00:20:48,030 --> 00:20:49,770 wrap my head around, yeah, 476 00:20:49,770 --> 00:20:53,072 as a non-like spatial analyst. 477 00:20:53,072 --> 00:20:54,499 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 478 00:20:54,499 --> 00:20:55,500 [Attendant 3] A support practitioner. 479 00:20:55,500 --> 00:20:56,333 No. Yeah. 480 00:20:56,333 --> 00:20:58,860 I think, you know, the more you zoom out, 481 00:20:58,860 --> 00:20:59,730 and the more you aggregate, 482 00:20:59,730 --> 00:21:03,240 the more you're averaging up those misses above and below, 483 00:21:03,240 --> 00:21:04,073 and that's a good thing. 484 00:21:04,073 --> 00:21:06,660 But we haven't quite cracked 485 00:21:06,660 --> 00:21:09,930 the aggregating uncertainties yet to those scales. 486 00:21:09,930 --> 00:21:10,943 [Attendant 3] Thanks. 487 00:21:11,790 --> 00:21:13,500 [Attendant 4] I think that's all the time we have, 488 00:21:13,500 --> 00:21:14,333 at lunch now, 489 00:21:14,333 --> 00:21:16,846 but want catch up with them after? 490 00:21:16,846 --> 00:21:20,679 (audience members applauding)