Scenario 3) You work as a geology professor at the University of Washington. You

Question

Scenario 3) You work as a geology professor at the University of Washington. Your frien the ecology department tells you about a rare tree fungus that appears to have spread to oregon. The fungus rapidly kills American Red Oaks, and your friend thinks that there is a good chance that the fungus will spread to Washington. You know that dead trees burn a lot faster than living trees, so you decide to quantitatively investigate how much wo a given wildland fire compared to a wildland fire in a forest that has not been exposed to the fungus. You want to report your results in terms of total carbon dioxide was released in the fire (in kg) and the rate of carbon dioxide release during the burn (in kg/day). How would you set up this research project? What data would you need? Design the research experiment below, and explain your design with sketches, equations, words, and/or examples. (15 pts) rse a fungus outbreak would make

Explanation / Answer

Method1                                           Research Experiment

1) Calculate the area of forest using satellite image like MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer).

2) Calculate NDVI (Normalised Difference Vegetation Index) for the area.

3) Based on the NDVI value differentiate between dry and green patches of forest.

4) Calculate the area of dry and green patches.

5) According to Wiedinmyer et al., 2006. (Wiedinmyer C, Quayle B, Geron C, Belote A, McKenzie D, Zhang X, O'Neill S, Wynne KK. Estimating emissions from fires in North America for Air Quality Modeling. Atmospheric Environment. 2006;40:3419–3432. doi: 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2006.02.010).

Emissionsi=A*B*CE*ei

Where

A: Area Burned

B: Biomass burned (type of vegetation, woody or leafy biomass and moisture content.

CE=Combustion efficiency

ei =Emission Factor (Fuel condition)

With this formula we can able to calculate emissions like   (CO2, CO, CH4, NOx, NH3, SO2, VOC, PM10, and PM2.5)

For present question we can calculate for CO2.

Here

A = total area of forest.

ei =Emission factors (kg species emitted Mg1 biomass burned) were assigned for each land cover classification in the GLC2000, and for each emitted species (CO2, CO, CH4, NOx, NH3, SO2, VOC, PM10, and PM2.5) (Wiedinmyer et al., 2006)

For CO2 it is ranged from 1588 to 1630 (kg species Mg1 biomass burned)

Method 2

Here we are focussing on American Red Oak.

1) Calculate the area of American Red Oak (ARO) forest using satellite image like MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer).

For this there is a need to do the ground truthing.

We have to make the spectral library for American Red Oak using spectroradiometer.

2) Approximate the weight of one tree

3) Calculate the average weight of ARO

4) Burn 1 kg of dry ARO (infected by fungus)

5) Measure CO2 (in kg) and time it takes to burn.

6) Burn 1 kg of wood from green ARO

7) Measure CO2 (in kg) and time it takes to burn

8) Estimate total CO2 if all ARO in Washington is not infected by fungus. It will give CO2 (in kg) and CO2 (kg/day)

Equation 1

(Total CO2 in Kg) dried, infected by fungus/ Total CO2 in Kg, not infected by fungus

= Severity factor caused by fungus in case of wildfire for CO2 (in kg)

Equation 2

CO2 released per day dried, infected by fungus/ CO2 released per day , not infected by fungus = CO2 released per day (kg/day)

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