Regional Initiatives
Northern Eurasian Earth Science Partnership Initiative (NEESPI)
NEESPI, is an active and strategically evolving program of internationally-supported Earth systems science research, which has as its foci issues in northern Eurasia that are relevant to regional and global scientific and decision-making communities.
Mission: The Northern Eurasian Earth Science Partnership Initiative (NEESPI) will identify the critical science questions and establish an international program of coordinated research on the state and dynamics of terrestrial ecosystems, land-use in northern Eurasia and their interactions with the Earth’s Climate system to enhance scientific knowledge and develop predictive capabilities to support informed decision-making communities concerned for example with carbon accounting, water resources and the impacts of changes in permafrost.
NEESPI Goals: To conduct a large-scale, interdisciplinary program of funded research aimed at developing a better understanding of the interactions between the terrestrial ecosystem and the atmosphere, with a special emphasis on the human impacts and feedbacks in northern Eurasia in support of international Earth science programs with particular relevance to global climate change research interests (including carbon) and international sponsoring agency funding priorities.
NEESPI Study Area: The NEESPI study area is loosely defined as the region lying between 15 E Longitude in the west, the Pacific Coast in the east, 40 N Latitude in the south, and the Arctic Ocean coastal zone in the north. Territory of the former USSR, Fennoscandia, Eastern Europe, Mongolia, and North China are all included in this area. All landscapes and components of the terrestrial biosphere, including the hydrology and atmosphere, that are interactive for purposes of Earth science investigation (to include the human impacts) are considered a part of NEESPI study area.
For more information, contact Pasha Groisman (NEESPI Project Scientist, NOAA/UCAR), or visit http://neespi.org/
Example NEESPI Project: Northern Eurasia Landcover Dynamics Analysis (NELDA) Project
Principal Investigator: Olga Krankina, Oregon State University
Dr. Olga Krankina, with a team of collaborators in the US and in Russia is completing the analysis of carbon dynamics in forest ecosystems of the St. Petersburg region of Russia. Landsat-based mapping of land-cover and forest biomass (http://www.fsl.orst.edu/larse/carbon/lcluc.html) agreed well with the results of ground-based forest inventory. Change detection was performed using the Disturbance Index and the archive of 42 Landsat images covering the period 1977-2000. Clearcut harvest was detected on 7.1% of the total forest area (6.7 million ha) and reflected the known patterns of variation within the region and over time. Regionally calibrated StandCarb model (http://www.fsl.orst.edu/lter/pubs/webdocs/models/standcarb2.html) indicates net carbon sink of 2.27 TgC in year 2000 with regrowing forest offsetting carbon source of 0.45TgC in forests harvested within the prior 14 years. The project attracted renewed attention in Russia after the country ratified the Kyoto protocol in 2005 and started to explore the potential for using remotely sensed data to assess carbon sources and sinks in its vast forests.
