Plant Growth Declined Over the Past Decade - UNEP Global Environmental Alert Service (GEAS) September 2010

Calculating Net Primary Production (NPP) is the first step in quantifying the amount of carbon plants fix from the atmosphere and accumulate as biomass. NPP is an important component of the global carbon cycle, but it is also useful in estimating environmental change, such as desertification, deforestation, and disturbances such as fire and insect outbreaks; assessing the impacts of pollution and climate change; and evaluating the status of ecosystems and their services, including habitat and wildlife condition and the size of ecological footprints.