Abstract
Climate change and high rates of global carbon emissions have focussed attention on the need for high-quality monitoring systems to assess how much carbon is present in terrestrial systems and how these change over time. The choice of system to adopt should be guided by good science. There is a growing body of scientific and technical information on ground-based and remote sensing methods of carbon measurement. The adequacy and comparability of these different systems have not been fully evaluated. A systematic review will compare methods of assessing carbon stocks and carbon stock changes in key land use categories, including, forest land, cropland, grassland, and wetlands, in terrestrial carbon pools that can be accounted for under the Kyoto protocol (above- ground biomass, below-ground biomass, dead wood, litter and soil carbon). Assessing carbon in harvested wood products will not be considered in this review. Developing effective mitigation strategies to reduce carbon emissions and equitable adaptation strategies to cope with increasing global temperatures will rely on robust scientific information that is free from biases imposed by national and commercial interests. A systematic review of the methods used for assessing carbon stocks and carbon stock changes will contribute to the transparent analysis of complex and often contradictory science.
Highlights
Climate change and high rates of global carbon emissions have focussed attention on the need for high-quality monitoring systems to assess how much carbon is present in terrestrial systems and how these change over time
Deforestation alone is responsible for about 12% of the world’s anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, whereas another 6% stems from peat oxidation and fires on degraded peatland areas [1]
There are cases where height is the key independent variable for explaining variations in biomass, measurements of diameter at breast height (DBH), which is typically used for trees, explains more than 95% of the variation in tree biomass even in highly species rich tropical forests [53]
Summary
Search strategy and resources Databases and search strings Searches using the terms listed above will be carried out in French, Spanish, and Portuguese, and for peat – as far as possible - in German, Finnish, Swedish, Russian, Polish and Czech. Advanced search option in whole record for: measure,measurement, method, estimate, estimation, calculation,calculate, assessment, survey, inventory, technique, allometric, sequest, stock, store, flux, sink; and in the title: carbon, biomass, decomposition, respiration, debris. A fully developed method will be devised after analysis of included papers reveals how studies that report carbon density values using assumptions or measurements converting biomass to carbon (e.g. carbon as 50% of AGB) can be used to convert field estimates and associated statistical model errors (RMSE) to biomass values
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