An Approach of Underground Survey for the Kyoto Protocol
Kyosuke Onishi, Shuichi Rokugawa and Yoshibumi Katoh
The University of Tokyo, Japan.
Contacts: gp@leeda.com (Kyosuke Onishi)
Abstract
Global warming apparently increases in recent years. Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997 here in Kyoto and the developed countries are working hard to achieve their CO2 reduction targets. They can use their large forest sinks to offset greenhouse gas emissions, but the uncertainty in the absorption of carbon dioxide highly remains as one of the scientific big problems. Satellite remote sensing is gradually recognized as the efficient estimation method of carbon stocks above the ground. However, no effective methods are proposed for the estimation of underground carbon stocks. In these circumstances, we have tried to apply the ground-penetrating radar to the estimation of underground carbon stocks. The major two targets, soil horizons and tree roots, can be easily and precisely imaged by this method. We have used a 400-900MHz antenna for soil horizons, and as the result, the boundaries of soil horizons have successfully detected in an agricultural land and a logged forest. Then, we have also used a 1.5GHz high frequency antenna, and this experiment has brought us the clearer root images than the other experiments previously applied. This study requires further experiments to clarify the possibilities and problems of this method.
raeg2003@tansa.kumst.kyoto-u.ac.jp
Last modified: Wed Nov 27 00:11:25 2002