The Carbon Security Index: A novel approach to assessing how secure carbon is in sagebrush ecosystems within the Great Basin

We created an index to look at carbon security in the sagebrush steppe across the Great Basin. Our index uses a fractional plant cover dataset from the Rangeland Analysis Platform (https://rangelands.app/), a fire probability model dataset created for the Great Basin (Smith et al., 2023), and the resistance and resilience categorical dataset created for the sagebrush steppe (Chambers et al., 2014, 2017). Our carbon security index (CSI) is made up of three parts as following:

CSI = Preferred Rangeland Cover Index + Resistance & Resilience – P(Fire)

The result is an index that spans from -2 to +2 and can be used to compare carbon security in different spatial.

For greater detail of methods and rational please read the associated paper.