Ecosystem Function in Savannas : Measurement and Modeling at Landscape to Global Scales

Spanning biophysics, biochemistry, land use change, and measuring and modeling, this book addresses the quantitative spatial and temporal dynamics of global savannas. It describes the global savanna biome in terms of broad ecological properties, temporal dynamics, disturbance levels, and human dimensions. The text examines carbon, water, energy, and trace gas fluxes for major global savanna regions. It also looks at quantitative surface properties of savannas that can be retrieved using remote sensing, presents numerical approaches to explore savanna dynamics, and explores the unification of savanna modeling and measurement.

Fascinating and diverse, savanna ecosystems support a combination of pastoral and agropastoral communities alongside wild and domestic herbivores that can be found nowhere else. This diversity has made the study of these areas problematic. Ecosystem Function in Savannas: Measurement and Modeling at Landscape to Global Scales addresses some of the discontinuities in the treatment of savannas by the scientific community and documents a range of measurements, methods, technologies, applications, and modeling approaches.

Based on contributions from leading authorities and experts on savanna systems worldwide, the book describes the global savanna biome in terms of its broad ecological properties, temporal dynamics, disturbance levels, and human dimensions. The text examines carbon, water, energy, and trace gas fluxes for major global savanna regions. It looks at quantitative surface properties of savannas that can be retrieved using remote sensing and numerical approaches used to explore savanna dynamics. The authors also discuss how savanna modeling and measurement approaches might be unified.

By presenting this confluence of information in a single resource, the book provides a platform for examining synergies, connections, integrative opportunities, and complementarities among approaches and data sources. This information can then be used to harmonize measurement and modeling methods among scales and across disciplinary boundaries. The book builds a bridge across the markedly different perspectives on savannas by which ecologists, biogeochemists, remote sensors, geographers, anthropologists, and modelers approach their science.