Temperate zone agriculture landscapes are often comprised of both croplands and non-production perennial vegetation (NPPV). The latter provides ecosystem services (ES), of which carbon sequestration is one. Estimation of aboveground carbon stocks in NPPV has incentivized carbon storage within the agricultural landscape. Remote sensing has significantly improved resolution of earth imaging and automated assessment of these often small, fragmented NPPV parcels. Novel methods of assessment have also been motivated by changes in land policy and concomitant loss of NPPV carbon stocks. To characterize and evaluate the carbon storage potential of agricultural NPPV in Southwestern British Columbia, we utilized a compliment of remote sensing and secondary data sources. Object- and pixel-oriented classification with RapidEye imagery enabled mapping of NPPV at 92.9% accuracy, covering 33.2% of the landscape. NPPV provided 3.34 Mt C in aboveground biomass, 38.4% of which was composed of fragments unlikely to be identified through coarser satellite imagery. Using secondary soil surveys and sub-regional characteristics, indicators of agricultural expansion suggested that small parcels of NPPV were more likely to persist on active farmland, while large forest stands (> 9 hectares) were less likely to occur alongside lands already in production and often located on lands amenable to farming. Were these large contiguous tracks of NPPV cleared for production agriculture, we estimate that 0.98–1.86 Mt of stored carbon could potentially be released. These stands represent important carbon sinks and their retention could be incentivized through ES services remuneration and conservation programs.

中文翻译：

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一种表征和量化不列颠哥伦比亚省西南部区域农场景观非生产多年生植被碳储存和损失潜力的新方法

温带农业景观通常由农田和非生产性多年生植被 (NPPV) 组成。后者提供生态系统服务 (ES)，碳固存就是其中之一。NPPV 中地上碳储量的估算激励了农业景观中的碳储存。遥感显着提高了地球成像的分辨率和对这些通常很小、零散的 NPPV 地块的自动评估。土地政策的变化和随之而来的 NPPV 碳储量的减少也推动了新的评估方法。为了表征和评估不列颠哥伦比亚省西南部农业 NPPV 的碳储存潜力，我们利用了遥感和二手数据源的补充。使用 RapidEye 图像进行面向对象和像素的分类能够以 92.9% 的准确率绘制 NPPV，覆盖了 33.2% 的景观。NPPV 在地上生物量中提供了 3.34 Mt C，其中 38.4% 由不太可能通过较粗略的卫星图像识别的碎片组成。使用次生土壤调查和次区域特征，农业扩张指标表明，小块 NPPV 更有可能在活动农田上持续存在，而大型林分（> 9 公顷）不太可能出现在已经生产的土地旁边，并且经常发生位于适合耕种的土地上。如果这些大型连续的 NPPV 轨道被清除用于生产性农业，我们估计可能会释放 0.98-1.86 Mt 的储存碳。