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From small-scale forest structure to Amazon-wide carbon estimates.

ABSTRACT: Tropical forests play an important role in the global carbon cycle. High-resolution remote sensing techniques, e.g., spaceborne lidar, can measure complex tropical forest structures, but it remains a challenge how to interpret such information for the assessment of forest biomass and productivity. Here, we develop an approach to estimate basal area, aboveground biomass and productivity within Amazonia by matching 770,000 GLAS lidar (ICESat) profiles with forest simulations considering spatial heterogeneous environmental and ecological conditions. This allows for deriving frequency distributions of key forest attributes for the entire Amazon. This detailed interpretation of remote sensing data improves estimates of forest attributes by 20-43% as compared to (conventional) estimates using mean canopy height. The inclusion of forest modeling has a high potential to close a missing link between remote sensing measurements and the 3D structure of forests, and may thereby improve continent-wide estimates of biomass and productivity.

SUBMITTER: Rodig E

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6841659 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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From small-scale forest structure to Amazon-wide carbon estimates.

Rödig Edna E Knapp Nikolai N Fischer Rico R Bohn Friedrich J FJ Dubayah Ralph R Tang Hao H Huth Andreas A

Nature communications 20191108 1

Tropical forests play an important role in the global carbon cycle. High-resolution remote sensing techniques, e.g., spaceborne lidar, can measure complex tropical forest structures, but it remains a challenge how to interpret such information for the assessment of forest biomass and productivity. Here, we develop an approach to estimate basal area, aboveground biomass and productivity within Amazonia by matching 770,000 GLAS lidar (ICESat) profiles with forest simulations considering spatial he ...[more]

PMID: 31704933

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Project description:AimThe accurate mapping of forest carbon stocks is essential for understanding the global carbon cycle, for assessing emissions from deforestation, and for rational land-use planning. Remote sensing (RS) is currently the key tool for this purpose, but RS does not estimate vegetation biomass directly, and thus may miss significant spatial variations in forest structure. We test the stated accuracy of pantropical carbon maps using a large independent field dataset.LocationTropical forests of the Amazon basin. The permanent archive of the field plot data can be accessed at: http://dx.doi.org/10.5521/FORESTPLOTS.NET/2014_1.MethodsTwo recent pantropical RS maps of vegetation carbon are compared to a unique ground-plot dataset, involving tree measurements in 413 large inventory plots located in nine countries. The RS maps were compared directly to field plots, and kriging of the field data was used to allow area-based comparisons.ResultsThe two RS carbon maps fail to capture the main gradient in Amazon forest carbon detected using 413 ground plots, from the densely wooded tall forests of the north-east, to the light-wooded, shorter forests of the south-west. The differences between plots and RS maps far exceed the uncertainties given in these studies, with whole regions over- or under-estimated by > 25%, whereas regional uncertainties for the maps were reported to be < 5%.Main conclusionsPantropical biomass maps are widely used by governments and by projects aiming to reduce deforestation using carbon offsets, but may have significant regional biases. Carbon-mapping techniques must be revised to account for the known ecological variation in tree wood density and allometry to create maps suitable for carbon accounting. The use of single relationships between tree canopy height and above-ground biomass inevitably yields large, spatially correlated errors. This presents a significant challenge to both the forest conservation and remote sensing communities, because neither wood density nor species assemblages can be reliably mapped from space.

Project description:BackgroundSeveral independent lines of evidence suggest that Amazon forests have provided a significant carbon sink service, and also that the Amazon carbon sink in intact, mature forests may now be threatened as a result of different processes. There has however been no work done to quantify non-land-use-change forest carbon fluxes on a national basis within Amazonia, or to place these national fluxes and their possible changes in the context of the major anthropogenic carbon fluxes in the region. Here we present a first attempt to interpret results from ground-based monitoring of mature forest carbon fluxes in a biogeographically, politically, and temporally differentiated way. Specifically, using results from a large long-term network of forest plots, we estimate the Amazon biomass carbon balance over the last three decades for the different regions and nine nations of Amazonia, and evaluate the magnitude and trajectory of these differentiated balances in relation to major national anthropogenic carbon emissions.ResultsThe sink of carbon into mature forests has been remarkably geographically ubiquitous across Amazonia, being substantial and persistent in each of the five biogeographic regions within Amazonia. Between 1980 and 2010, it has more than mitigated the fossil fuel emissions of every single national economy, except that of Venezuela. For most nations (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname) the sink has probably additionally mitigated all anthropogenic carbon emissions due to Amazon deforestation and other land use change. While the sink has weakened in some regions since 2000, our analysis suggests that Amazon nations which are able to conserve large areas of natural and semi-natural landscape still contribute globally-significant carbon sequestration.ConclusionsMature forests across all of Amazonia have contributed significantly to mitigating climate change for decades. Yet Amazon nations have not directly benefited from providing this global scale ecosystem service. We suggest that better monitoring and reporting of the carbon fluxes within mature forests, and understanding the drivers of changes in their balance, must become national, as well as international, priorities.

Dataset Information

From small-scale forest structure to Amazon-wide carbon estimates.

Publications

From small-scale forest structure to Amazon-wide carbon estimates.

Similar Datasets

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