What was built A carbon stock distribution map quantifying above-ground vegetation carbon in tonnes per hectare across Lane and Douglass Counties, Oregon — providing the spatial specificity needed for conservation prioritization, land management decisions, and climate resilience planning.
Who it was for Land managers and climate planners conducting carbon sequestration assessment and conservation prioritization at the county scale.
Why it mattered Carbon sequestration decisions require knowing where carbon is concentrated, not just how much exists in aggregate. This output shows which forest zones store the most carbon and where gaps exist — giving land managers the geographic context that makes conservation prioritization actionable.

The Challenge

Conservation prioritization requires spatial specificity that aggregate data can't provide. An aggregate carbon figure for a county tells a land manager that carbon exists in the landscape — it doesn't identify where to focus protection efforts, where restoration investment will return the highest sequestration benefit, or where timber extraction is removing the most carbon-dense forest. Spatial distribution is what makes the information actionable.

Above-ground vegetation carbon stock was mapped in tonnes per hectare across Lane and Douglass Counties in southern Oregon — a region spanning temperate rainforest, mixed forest, and transitional vegetation zones with significant old-growth patches and active timber operations. The red-to-green gradient makes sequestration capacity legible at a glance: deep green for high-carbon old-growth zones, red for disturbed or low-carbon land.

The output supports carbon sequestration assessment and climate resilience planning at the county scale, giving land managers the spatial context needed to prioritize conservation investments and evaluate land use tradeoffs.

Knowing where carbon is stored supports better land management decisions — and this map makes that distribution visible at the scale where county-level conservation and land use decisions are actually made.

Carbon Stock Gradient — Above-Ground Vegetation (t/ha)
Low — disturbed / cleared land High — dense old-growth forest

"Knowing where carbon is stored supports better land management decisions — and this map makes that distribution visible at the scale where those decisions get made."

Process

  1. 1
    Research Identified carbon stock dataset for Oregon; assessed appropriate spatial resolution for county-scale analysis.
  2. 2
    Data Prep Processed raster; established classification for continuous t/ha gradient output.
  3. 3
    GIS Work Applied symbolization; designed red-to-green gradient for carbon density visualization; verified spatial extent against county boundaries.
  4. 4
    Output Published raster map; supports land management and climate planning decisions.
Principle 01
Structure before software

Before choosing a classification scheme or color ramp, the analytical question has to be settled: are we showing discrete classes or a continuous distribution? Who is reading this map and what decisions will they make? The answer to those questions determines every downstream choice.