Carbon Monitoring in Rangelands

Over a quarter of the planet’s ice-free land is used for the grazing of livestock, and these rangelands hold 30% of global soil carbon.

Conversion of prairie to cropland and overgrazing has caused substantial soil carbon loss. However, through improved land management, rangelands offer an enormous opportunity to sequester CO₂ from the atmosphere and limit climate change. Carbon Monitoring in Rangelands is a research program aimed at understanding and unlocking the promise of rangeland management as a natural climate solution by providing tools and data that enable rangeland managers to better understand their land’s carbon balance and engage with carbon markets.

The project is developing and verifying Woodwell’s new Rangeland Carbon Tracking and Management Tool (RCTM), a low-cost, spatially resolved, remote sensing and field-data informed system for quantifying and monitoring soil carbon stocks and CO2 exchange (carbon flux) for rangeland systems across the United States. The RCTM will improve on current measurement systems by combining soil spectroscopy, remote sensing, process-based modeling, and data analytics. It will provide a robust process for monitoring, reporting, and verifying carbon credits and allow scientists and land managers to understand the true greenhouse gas consequences of rangeland management.