Calculating Carbon for Conservation using InVEST

In this tutorial, Ontario Nature’s Graeme Smith shows how to use InVEST to calculate carbon in an area of conservation interest and create a carbon stock map in ArcGIS Pro with this data. Developed by Stanford University as part of their Natural Capital Project, InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs) is a suite of models used to map and valuate ecosystem services, including carbon storage.
Software used in this video: ArcGIS Pro (version 3.0.0), InVEST 3.12.0 Workbench, Microsoft Excel
Follow along with Ontario Nature’s step-by-step guide to conduct a carbon assessment using InVEST: view.publitas.com/on-nature/i...
Links to resources mentioned during this tutorial:
Carbon Pool Datasets:
Aboveground and belowground biomass: daac.ornl.gov/cgi-bin/dsviewe...)
Soil Organic Carbon biomass: figshare.com/articles/dataset...)
WWF-Canada and McMaster University National Carbon Map: wwf.ca/carbonmap
InVEST user guide: storage.googleapis.com/releas...
InVEST community form: community.naturalcapitalproje...
From increasing protected areas to improving land management, carbon stock assessments can advance conservation. Ontario Nature’s latest publication, “A Beginner’s Guide on Measuring Carbon Stocks to Support Conservation,” demystifies carbon stock assessments. Learn about the importance of this work for advancing conservation in Ontario in our newly released guide: view.publitas.com/on-nature/m...

[@ndera6100]

Thank you stand ford university, This video is gonna be a big asset for me!

[@prisharma-rc1fw]

Thanks for the video. But what about the values for dead carbon? Any sources on global level?

[@anranqin7479]

If my study area is not Canada, how do I find its soil carbon density dataset?

[@asadaziz468]

Hello Sir, Can you please confirm is LULC data is available for Pakistan along with carbon pools list? and is it possible on ARCmap-10.8.1?

[@tekenabenibo4393]

Thank you for the video its very helpful, but I wanted to find out how to get the Future LULC data, that is indicated in the InVEST model interphase. or how can it be acquired for an area of interest, thank you

[@Ontario_Nature]

We didn’t model future land cover, but have come across a dataset of predicted global land cover created by Clark Labs and published by Esri in 2021 (hub.arcgis.com/datasets/esri::land-cover-2050-global/about). Note that there are only 10 land cover classes (which is different from the land cover dataset used in our example), and not every country is included. Keep in mind that any model of future land cover will have limitations.

[@simateimourianmotlagh2023]

Could you tell me is there any specific symbology for carbon maps? And could you tell me if it is necessary to save the red area around the Peninsula in carbon map ?

[@Ontario_Nature]

As far as I’m aware, there isn’t a specific symbology for carbon maps! Often organizations will use a green/yellow/brown colour ramp, to symbolically represent the carbon cycle. The red area around Black Bay Peninsula was because the output created by InVEST is a raster (and a grid gets created around the entire area), but you can clip the raster to your area of interest.

[@blenderburbax]

If the original raster is scaled by 0.1 then to change it to its original size shouldn't we have to multiply it by 10 rather than 0.1?

[@Ontario_Nature]

The original raster was scaled by a factor of 10 (based on the Spawn et al. 2020 paper that ORNL DAAC included in their user guide about the dataset, the authors stated that it was to reduce file size). The user guide states “Scaling: 0.1” indicating that we need to multiply the values of the original raster by 0.1. Unless you are using the aboveground or belowground biomass dataset from ORNL DAAC, you won’t need to complete this step.

[@miguelnaviap6562]

Just one question... Could I do the same thing that InVEST does with just ArcGIS?...

[@Ontario_Nature]

InVEST is a fairly simple carbon model so hypothetically you could get similar results using ArcGIS if you already have carbon pool data. ArcGIS doesn’t have a tool like InVEST. However, this would also be a fairly simple calculation in ArcGIS (adding all the carbon storage values across your area of interest; note that you would likely need to ensure the resolution is the same for each carbon pool layer, and there will likely be other things to consider if you’re doing a calculation like this in ArcGIS!).

[@simateimourianmotlagh2023]

Could you tell me how I can download Black Bay Peninsula shape file?

[@qweciasante5648]

Were you able to download the Black Bay Peninsula shape file? Can you share please. Thank you