http://www.cbmjournal.com The most accessed research articles published by Carbon Balance and Management 2012-01-30T00:00:00Z Measuring forest degradation and related forest carbon stock changes is more challenging than measuring deforestation since degradation implies changes in the structure of the forest and does not entail a change in land use, making it less easily detectable through remote sensing. Although we anticipate the use of the IPCC guidance under the United Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), there is no one single method for monitoring forest degradation for the case of REDD+ policy. In this review paper we highlight that the choice depends upon a number of factors including the type of degradation, available historical data, capacities and resources, and the potentials and limitations of various measurement and monitoring approaches. Current degradation rates can be measured through field data (i.e. multi-date national forest inventories and permanent sample plot data, commercial forestry data sets, proxy data from domestic markets) and/or remote sensing data (i.e. direct mapping of canopy and forest structural changes or indirect mapping through modelling approaches), with the combination of techniques providing the best options. Developing countries frequently lack consistent historical field data for assessing past forest degradation, and so must rely more on remote sensing approaches mixed with current field assessments of carbon stock changes. Historical degradation estimates will have larger uncertainties as it will be difficult to determine their accuracy. However improving monitoring capacities for systematic forest degradation estimates today will help reduce uncertainties even for historical estimates. http://www.cbmjournal.com/content/6/1/13 Martin Herold Rosa Maria Roman-Cuesta Danilo Mollicone Yasumasa Hirata Patrick Van Laake Gregory Asner Carlos Souza Margaret Skutsch Valerio Avitabile Ken MacDicken Carbon Balance and Management 2011, null:13 2011-11-24T00:00:00Z doi:10.1186/1750-0680-6-13 /content/figures/1750-0680-6-13-toc.gif Carbon Balance and Management 1750-0680 ${item.volume} 13 2011-11-24T00:00:00Z XML The paper reviews a number of challenges associated with reducing degradation and its related emissions through national approaches to REDD+ under UNFCCC policy. It proposes that in many countries, it may in the short run be easier to deal with the kinds of degradation that result from locally driven community over-exploitation of forest for livelihoods, than from selective logging or fire control. Such degradation is low-level, but chronic, and is experienced over very large forest areas. Community forest management programmes tend to result not only in reduced degradation, but also in forest enhancement; moreover they are often popular, and do not require major political shifts. In principle these approaches therefore offer a quick start option for REDD+. Developing reference emissions levels for low-level locally driven degradation is difficult however given that stock losses and gains are too small to be identified and measured using remote sensing, and that in most countries there is little or no forest inventory data available. We therefore propose that forest management initiatives at the local level, such as those promoted by community forest management programmes, should monitor, and be credited for, only the net increase in carbon stock over the implementation period, as assessed by ground level surveys at the start and end of the period. This would also resolve the problem of nesting (ensuring that all credits are accounted for against the national reference emission level), since communities and others at the local level would be rewarded only for increased sequestration, while the national reference emission level would deal only with reductions in emissions from deforestation and degradation. http://www.cbmjournal.com/content/6/1/16 Margaret Skutsch Arturo Balderas Torres Tuyeni Mwampamba Adrian Ghilardi Martin Herold Carbon Balance and Management 2011, null:16 2011-12-28T00:00:00Z doi:10.1186/1750-0680-6-16 /content/figures/1750-0680-6-16-toc.gif Carbon Balance and Management 1750-0680 ${item.volume} 16 2011-12-28T00:00:00Z PDF Background: Large spatial, seasonal and annual variability of major drivers of the carbon cycle (precipitation, temperature, fire regime and nutrient availability) are common in the Sahel region. This causes large variability in net ecosystem exchange and in vegetation productivity, the subsistence basis for a major part of the rural population in Sahel. This study compares the 2005 dry and wet season fluxes of CO2 for a grass land/sparse savanna site in semi arid Sudan and relates these fluxes to water availability and incoming photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD). Data from this site could complement the current sparse observation network in Africa, a continent where climatic change could significantly impact the future and which constitute a weak link in our understanding of the global carbon cycle. Results: The dry season (represented by Julian day 35–46, February 2005) was characterized by low soil moisture availability, low evapotranspiration and a high vapor pressure deficit. The mean daily NEE (net ecosystem exchange, Eq. 1) was -14.7 mmol d-1 for the 12 day period (negative numbers denote sinks, i.e. flux from the atmosphere to the biosphere). The water use efficiency (WUE) was 1.6 mmol CO2 mol H2O-1 and the light use efficiency (LUE) was 0.95 mmol CO2 mol PPFD-1. Photosynthesis is a weak, but linear function of PPFD. The wet season (represented by Julian day 266–273, September 2005) was, compared to the dry season, characterized by slightly higher soil moisture availability, higher evapotranspiration and a slightly lower vapor pressure deficit. The mean daily NEE was -152 mmol d-1 for the 8 day period. The WUE was lower, 0.97 mmol CO2 mol H2O-1 and the LUE was higher, 7.2 μmol CO2 mmol PPFD-1 during the wet season compared to the dry season. During the wet season photosynthesis increases with PPFD to about 1600 μmol m-2s-1 and then levels off. Conclusion: Based on data collected during two short periods, the studied ecosystem was a sink of carbon both during the dry and wet season 2005. The small sink during the dry season is surprising and similar dry season sinks have not to our knowledge been reported from other similar savanna ecosystems and could have potential management implications for agroforestry. A strong response of NEE versus small changes in plant available soil water content was found. Collection and analysis of flux data for several consecutive years including variations in precipitation, available soil moisture and labile soil carbon are needed for understanding the year to year variation of the carbon budget of this grass land/sparse savanna site in semi arid Sudan. http://www.cbmjournal.com/content/3/1/7 Jonas Ardo Meelis Molder Bashir El-Tahir Hatim Elkhidir Carbon Balance and Management 2008, null:7 2008-12-01T00:00:00Z doi:10.1186/1750-0680-3-7 /content/figures/1750-0680-3-7-toc.gif Carbon Balance and Management 1750-0680 ${item.volume} 7 2008-12-01T00:00:00Z XML To mitigate global climate change, a portfolio of strategies will be needed to keep the atmospheric CO2 concentration below a dangerous level. Here a carbon sequestration strategy is proposed in which certain dead or live trees are harvested via collection or selective cutting, then buried in trenches or stowed away in above-ground shelters. The largely anaerobic condition under a sufficiently thick layer of soil will prevent the decomposition of the buried wood. Because a large flux of CO2 is constantly being assimilated into the world's forests via photosynthesis, cutting off its return pathway to the atmosphere forms an effective carbon sink.It is estimated that a sustainable long-term carbon sequestration potential for wood burial is 10 ± 5 GtC y-1, and currently about 65 GtC is on the world's forest floors in the form of coarse woody debris suitable for burial. The potential is largest in tropical forests (4.2 GtC y-1), followed by temperate (3.7 GtC y-1) and boreal forests (2.1 GtC y-1). Burying wood has other benefits including minimizing CO2 source from deforestation, extending the lifetime of reforestation carbon sink, and reducing fire danger. There are possible environmental impacts such as nutrient lock-up which nevertheless appears manageable, but other concerns and factors will likely set a limit so that only part of the full potential can be realized.Based on data from North American logging industry, the cost for wood burial is estimated to be $14/tCO2($50/tC), lower than the typical cost for power plant CO2 capture with geological storage. The cost for carbon sequestration with wood burial is low because CO2 is removed from the atmosphere by the natural process of photosynthesis at little cost. The technique is low tech, distributed, easy to monitor, safe, and reversible, thus an attractive option for large-scale implementation in a world-wide carbon market. http://www.cbmjournal.com/content/3/1/1 Ning Zeng Carbon Balance and Management 2008, null:1 2008-01-03T00:00:00Z doi:10.1186/1750-0680-3-1 Climate change? Bury the problem Harvesting and burying trees in underground trenches could be an effective carbon sequestration strategy, helping to mitigate global climate change, and is also inexpensive, safe and reversible. /content/figures/1750-0680-3-1-toc.gif Carbon Balance and Management 1750-0680 ${item.volume} 1 2008-01-03T00:00:00Z XML Mapping and monitoring carbon stocks in forested regions of the world, particularly the tropics, has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years as deforestation and forest degradation account for up to 30% of anthropogenic carbon emissions, and are now included in climate change negotiations. We review the potential for satellites to measure carbon stocks, specifically aboveground biomass (AGB), and provide an overview of a range of approaches that have been developed and used to map AGB across a diverse set of conditions and geographic areas. We provide a summary of types of remote sensing measurements relevant to mapping AGB, and assess the relative merits and limitations of each. We then provide an overview of traditional techniques of mapping AGB based on ascribing field measurements to vegetation or land cover type classes, and describe the merits and limitations of those relative to recent data mining algorithms used in the context of an approach based on direct utilization of remote sensing measurements, whether optical or lidar reflectance, or radar backscatter. We conclude that while satellite remote sensing has often been discounted as inadequate for the task, attempts to map AGB without satellite imagery are insufficient. Moreover, the direct remote sensing approach provided more coherent maps of AGB relative to traditional approaches. We demonstrate this with a case study focused on continental Africa and discuss the work in the context of reducing uncertainty for carbon monitoring and markets. http://www.cbmjournal.com/content/4/1/2 Scott Goetz Alessandro Baccini Nadine Laporte Tracy Johns Wayne Walker Josef Kellndorfer Richard Houghton Mindy Sun Carbon Balance and Management 2009, null:2 2009-03-25T00:00:00Z doi:10.1186/1750-0680-4-2 /content/figures/1750-0680-4-2-toc.gif Carbon Balance and Management 1750-0680 ${item.volume} 2 2009-03-25T00:00:00Z XML Background: Accurate, high-resolution mapping of aboveground carbon density (ACD, Mg C ha-1) could provide insight into human and environmental controls over ecosystem state and functioning, and could support conservation and climate policy development. However, mapping ACD has proven challenging, particularly in spatially complex regions harboring a mosaic of land use activities, or in remote montane areas that are difficult to access and poorly understood ecologically. Using a combination of field measurements, airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) and satellite data, we present the first large-scale, high-resolution estimates of aboveground carbon stocks in Madagascar. Results: We found that elevation and the fraction of photosynthetic vegetation (PV) cover, analyzed throughout forests of widely varying structure and condition, account for 27-67% of the spatial variation in ACD. This finding facilitated spatial extrapolation of LiDAR-based carbon estimates to a total of 2,372,680 ha using satellite data. Remote, humid sub-montane forests harbored the highest carbon densities, while ACD was suppressed in dry spiny forests and in montane humid ecosystems, as well as in most lowland areas with heightened human activity. Independent of human activity, aboveground carbon stocks were subject to strong physiographic controls expressed through variation in tropical forest canopy structure measured using airborne LiDAR. Conclusions: High-resolution mapping of carbon stocks is possible in remote regions, with or without human activity, and thus carbon monitoring can be brought to highly endangered Malagasy forests as a climate-change mitigation and biological conservation strategy. http://www.cbmjournal.com/content/7/1/2 Gregory Asner John Clark Joseph Mascaro Romuald Vaudry K Chadwick Ghislain Vieilledent Maminiaina Rasamoelina Aravindh Balaji Ty Kennedy-Bowdoin Lena Maatoug Matthew Colgan David Knapp Carbon Balance and Management 2012, null:2 2012-01-30T00:00:00Z doi:10.1186/1750-0680-7-2 /content/figures/1750-0680-7-2-toc.gif Carbon Balance and Management 1750-0680 ${item.volume} 2 2012-01-30T00:00:00Z PDF Background: Fires emit significant amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere. These emissions, however, are highly variable in both space and time. Additionally, CO2 emissions estimates from fires are very uncertain. The combination of high spatial and temporal variability and substantial uncertainty associated with fire CO2 emissions can be problematic to efforts to develop remote sensing, monitoring, and inverse modeling techniques to quantify carbon fluxes at the continental scale. Policy and carbon management decisions based on atmospheric sampling/modeling techniques must account for the impact of fire CO2 emissions; a task that may prove very difficult for the foreseeable future. This paper addresses the variability of CO2 emissions from fires across the US, how these emissions compare to anthropogenic emissions of CO2 and Net Primary Productivity, and the potential implications for monitoring programs and policy development. Results: Average annual CO2 emissions from fires in the lower 48 (LOWER48) states from 2002–2006 are estimated to be 213 (± 50 std. dev.) Tg CO2 yr-1 and 80 (± 89 std. dev.) Tg CO2 yr-1 in Alaska. These estimates have significant interannual and spatial variability. Needleleaf forests in the Southeastern US and the Western US are the dominant source regions for US fire CO2 emissions. Very high emission years typically coincide with droughts, and climatic variability is a major driver of the high interannual and spatial variation in fire emissions. The amount of CO2 emitted from fires in the US is equivalent to 4–6% of anthropogenic emissions at the continental scale and, at the state-level, fire emissions of CO2 can, in some cases, exceed annual emissions of CO2 from fossil fuel usage. Conclusion: The CO2 released from fires, overall, is a small fraction of the estimated average annual Net Primary Productivity and, unlike fossil fuel CO2 emissions, the pulsed emissions of CO2 during fires are partially counterbalanced by uptake of CO2 by regrowing vegetation in the decades following fire. Changes in fire severity and frequency can, however, lead to net changes in atmospheric CO2 and the short-term impacts of fire emissions on monitoring, modeling, and carbon management policy are substantial. http://www.cbmjournal.com/content/2/1/10 Christine Wiedinmyer Jason Neff Carbon Balance and Management 2007, null:10 2007-11-01T00:00:00Z doi:10.1186/1750-0680-2-10 A burning issue While the long-term atmospheric impact of CO2 release from fires may be small and partially balanced by subsequent vegetation regrowth, the potential short-term effects on monitoring programmes and policy development merit further attention. /content/figures/1750-0680-2-10-toc.gif Carbon Balance and Management 1750-0680 ${item.volume} 10 2007-11-01T00:00:00Z XML Deforestation and forest degradation in the tropics is a major source of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The tropics also harbour more than half the world's threatened species, raising the possibility that reducing GHG emissions by curtailing tropical deforestation could provide substantial co-benefits for biodiversity conservation. Here we explore the potential for such co-benefits in Indonesia, a leading source of GHG emissions from land cover and land use change, and among the most species-rich countries in the world. We show that focal ecosystems for interventions to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in Indonesia do not coincide with areas supporting the most species-rich communities or highest concentration of threatened species. We argue that inherent trade-offs among ecosystems in emission reduction potential, opportunity cost of foregone development and biodiversity values will require a regulatory framework to balance emission reduction interventions with biodiversity co-benefit targets. We discuss how such a regulatory framework might function, and caution that pursuing emission reduction strategies without such a framework may undermine, not enhance, long-term prospects for biodiversity conservation in the tropics. http://www.cbmjournal.com/content/5/1/7 Gary Paoli Philip Wells Erik Meijaard Mathew Struebig Andrew Marshall Krystof Obidzinski Aseng Tan Andjar Rafiastanto Betsy Yaap J.W. Ferry Slik Alexandra Morel Balu Perumal Niels Wielaard Simon Husson Laura D'Arcy Carbon Balance and Management 2010, null:7 2010-11-23T00:00:00Z doi:10.1186/1750-0680-5-7 Matching biodiversity conservation with greenhouse gas reduction targets In Indonesia, ecosystems targeted by interventions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation do not coincide with areas containing the highest concentrations of threatened species or the richest communities. A framework needs to be developed to balance biodiversity conservation with emission reduction strategies. /content/figures/1750-0680-5-7-toc.gif Carbon Balance and Management 1750-0680 ${item.volume} 7 2010-11-23T00:00:00Z XML Background: Global forests capture and store significant amounts of CO2 through photosynthesis. When carbon is removed from forests through harvest, a portion of the harvested carbon is stored in wood products, often for many decades. The United States Forest Service (USFS) and other agencies are interested in accurately accounting for carbon flux associated with harvested wood products (HWP) to meet greenhouse gas monitoring commitments and climate change adaptation and mitigation objectives. This paper uses the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) production accounting approach and the California Forest Project Protocol (CFPP) to estimate HWP carbon storage from 1906 to 2010 for the USFS Northern Region, which includes forests in northern Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, and eastern Washington. Results: Based on the IPCC approach, carbon stocks in the HWP pool were increasing at one million megagrams of carbon (MgC) per year in the mid 1960s, with peak cumulative storage of 28 million MgC occurring in 1995. Net positive flux into the HWP pool over this period is primarily attributable to high harvest levels in the mid twentieth century. Harvest levels declined after 1970, resulting in less carbon entering the HWP pool. Since 1995, emissions from HWP at solid waste disposal sites have exceeded additions from harvesting, resulting in a decline in the total amount of carbon stored in the HWP pool. The CFPP approach shows a similar trend, with 100-year average carbon storage for each annual Northern Region harvest peaking in 1969 at 937,900 MgC, and fluctuating between 84,000 and 150,000 MgC over the last decade. Conclusions: The Northern Region HWP pool is now in a period of negative net annual stock change because the decay of products harvested between 1906 and 2010 exceeds additions of carbon to the HWP pool through harvest. However, total forest carbon includes both HWP and ecosystem carbon, which may have increased over the study period. Though our emphasis is on the Northern Region, we provide a framework by which the IPCC and CFPP methods can be applied broadly at sub-national scales to other regions, land management units, or firms. http://www.cbmjournal.com/content/7/1/1 Keith Stockmann Nathaniel Anderson Kenneth Skog Sean Healey Dan Loeffler Greg Jones James Morrison Carbon Balance and Management 2012, null:1 2012-01-13T00:00:00Z doi:10.1186/1750-0680-7-1 /content/figures/1750-0680-7-1-toc.gif Carbon Balance and Management 1750-0680 ${item.volume} 1 2012-01-13T00:00:00Z PDF Background: Reducing carbon Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) is of central importance to combat climate change. Foremost among the challenges is quantifying nation's carbon emissions from deforestation and degradation, which requires information on forest carbon storage. Here we estimated carbon storage in India's forest biomass for the years 2003, 2005 and 2007 and the net flux caused by deforestation and degradation, between two assessment periods i.e., Assessment Period first (ASP I), 2003-2005 and Assessment Period second (ASP II), 2005-2007. Results: The total estimated carbon stock in India's forest biomass varied from 3325 to 3161 Mt during the years 2003 to 2007 respectively. There was a net flux of 372 Mt of CO2 in ASP I and 288 Mt of CO2 in ASP II, with an annual emission of 186 and 114 Mt of CO2 respectively. The carbon stock in India's forest biomass decreased continuously from 2003 onwards, despite slight increase in forest cover. The rate of carbon loss from the forest biomass in ASP II has dropped by 38.27 % compared to ASP I. Conclusion: With the Copenhagen Accord, India along with other BASIC countries China, Brazil and South Africa is voluntarily going to cut emissions. India will voluntary reduce the emission intensity of its GDP by 20-25 % by 2020 in comparison to 2005 level, activities like REDD+ can provide a relatively cost-effective way of offsetting emissions, either by increasing the removals of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere by afforestation programmes, managing forests, or by reducing emissions through deforestation and degradation. http://www.cbmjournal.com/content/6/1/15 Mehraj Sheikh Munesh Kumar Rainer Bussmann N. Todaria Carbon Balance and Management 2011, null:15 2011-12-25T00:00:00Z doi:10.1186/1750-0680-6-15 /content/figures/1750-0680-6-15-toc.gif Carbon Balance and Management 1750-0680 ${item.volume} 15 2011-12-25T00:00:00Z PDF