A methodological framework to assess the carbon balance of tropical managed forests.

Camille Piponiot,Plinio Sist,Bruno Hérault,Laurent Descroix,Benjamin Ouliac,Antoine Cabon,Aurélie Dourdain,Ervan Rutishauser,Lucas Mazzei

doi:10.1186/s13021-016-0056-7

Abstract

BackgroundManaged forests are a major component of tropical landscapes. Production forests as designated by national forest services cover up to 400 million ha, i.e. half of the forested area in the humid tropics. Forest management thus plays a major role in the global carbon budget, but with a lack of unified method to estimate carbon fluxes from tropical managed forests. In this study we propose a new time- and spatially-explicit methodology to estimate the above-ground carbon budget of selective logging at regional scale.ResultsThe yearly balance of a logging unit, i.e. the elementary management unit of a forest estate, is modelled by aggregating three sub-models encompassing (i) emissions from extracted wood, (ii) emissions from logging damage and deforested areas and (iii) carbon storage from post-logging recovery. Models are parametrised and uncertainties are propagated through a MCMC algorithm. As a case study, we used 38 years of National Forest Inventories in French Guiana, northeastern Amazonia, to estimate the above-ground carbon balance (i.e. the net carbon exchange with the atmosphere) of selectively logged forests. Over this period, the net carbon balance of selective logging in the French Guianan Permanent Forest Estate is estimated to be comprised between 0.12 and 1.33 Tg C, with a median value of 0.64 Tg C. Uncertainties over the model could be diminished by improving the accuracy of both logging damage and large woody necromass decay submodels.ConclusionsWe propose an innovating carbon accounting framework relying upon basic logging statistics. This flexible tool allows carbon budget of tropical managed forests to be estimated in a wide range of tropical regions.

Highlights

Managed forests are a major component of tropical landscapes
Tropical managed forests, i.e. tropical forests managed for timber production, are important in the context of climate change mitigation as they might either act as carbon source or sink, depending on their management type and cutting cycle length [1]
Methodological aspects In this study we developed a new methodology to assess the above-ground carbon balance of tropical managed forests

Summary

Introduction

Production forests as designated by national forest services cover up to 400 million ha, i.e. half of the forested area in the humid tropics. Forest management plays a major role in the global carbon budget, but with a lack of unified method to estimate carbon fluxes from tropical managed forests. With half of tropical humid forests, i.e. more than 400 million ha, designated by National Forest Services (NFS) as production forests [2], forest management will play. In tropical forests, selective logging is generally. Selective logging practices result in long-lasting carbon emissions to the atmosphere [4]. Emissions come from (i) the extracted wood, (ii) logging damage, i.e. trees killed (purposely or incidentally) during logging operations and (iii) skid trails, logging roads and decks used for log yarding. The quite slow decay of these woody debris and harvested logs is a long-term source of carbon to the atmosphere

Methods

Results

Conclusion