Abstract
Land use directly impacts ecosystem carbon and indirectly influences atmospheric carbon. Computing ecosystem carbon for an area experiencing changes in land use is not trivial, as carbon densities change slowly after land‐use changes. We developed a tool, CarboScen, to estimate ecosystem carbon in landscapes. It is a simple tool typically used with an annual time step, and is based on carbon pools and densities. It assumes that carbon density asymptotically approaches a value, which is set for the land‐use type in question. We recommend CarboScen for landscapes with spatially relatively homogenous soils and climate, multiple land uses, and changes between these leading to slow changes in carbon densities because either soil organic carbon is included in the analysis or afforestation occurs. Thanks to its simplicity, it is particularly suitable for participatory planning, rapid assessment of REDD+ project potential, and educational use.
Highlights
Understanding the carbon implications of land-use change is essential to optimally mitigate climate change
The IPCC guidelines contain instructions for greenhouse gas accounting based on land-use classes (IPCC 2006), and dozens of tools have already been developed to facilitate computation (Denef et al 2012)
We describe some of these tools below under ‘CarboScen compared to other approaches’
Summary
Understanding the carbon implications of land-use change is essential to optimally mitigate climate change. Because measuring and estimating carbon density are difficult and time-consuming in the field, most larger scale ecosystem carbon quantifications are based on combining data by multiplying area and carbon density estimations of similar land-use classes obtained elsewhere (Carlson et al 2012) This land-use class-based approach simplifies the quantification, but it is the only option when temporal carbon trends are studied and only land-use data are available. The IPCC guidelines contain instructions for greenhouse gas accounting based on land-use classes (IPCC 2006), and dozens of tools have already been developed to facilitate computation (Denef et al 2012) These range in complexity, land uses and regions covered, spatial scale of use, inclusion of greenhouse gases, indirect impacts included, interface type, and range of intended users. We attempted to develop a relatively simple tool, CarboScen, based on equilibrium carbon densities given for land-use classes
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
