This image dataset details the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico above-ground forest biomass (AGB) (baseline 2000) developed by the United States (US) Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The USEPA AGB product (15 m) was created to support the development of landscape watershed predictor metrics for sediment and nutrient loadings associated with stream reaches. Above-ground forest biomass was estimated at a 15 m spatial resolution implementing methodology first posited by the Woods Hole Research Center where they developed the National Biomass and Carbon Dataset (NBCD2000) ─ an above-ground forest biomass map (30 m) for the conterminous United States. For EPA’s effort, spatial predictor layers for AGB estimation included derived products from the United States Geologic Survey (USGS) National Land Cover Dataset 2001 (NLCD) cover type and tree canopy density data, the USGS Gap Analysis Program (GAP) forest type classification data, USGS National Elevation Dataset (NED) topographic data, and the National Aeronautical and Space Administration’s (NASA’s) Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) tree height data. These predictor variables and Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) response variables (observed canopy height and AGB) were related through multivariate tree-based regression models. Units for this AGB map are in Mg/ha for each 15m pixel. Mean biomass (forest only) for the 15 m pixels was 72.59 Mg/ha (σ = 26.83). This estimate is close in agreement to an assessment of structure and condition of PR forests (2003) (Brandeis, 2006) where mean AGB was estimated at 80 Mg/ha.

Brandeis, T.J., M.B. Delaney, R. Parresol, L. Royer, 2006. Development of equations for predicting Puerto Rican subtropical dry forest biomass and volume, Forest Ecology and Management, 233:133-142. This dataset is not publicly accessible because: This data exceeds one GB in size and cannot be stored directly on ScienceHub. It can be accessed through the following means: ftp://newftp.epa.gov/Exposure/A-tqkc/. Format: This dataset is in an ERDAS Imagine *.img format which is easily converted to other formats in software packages such as ESRI ArcMap.

This dataset is associated with the following publication: Iiames , J., J. Riegel, and R. Lunetta. The Development and Evaluation of a High-Resolution Above Ground Biomass Product for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (2000). Ecosystem Services. Elsevier Online, New York, NY, USA, 83(4): 293-306, (2017).