Developed-developing world partnerships for sustainable development (3): Reducing carbon sequestration uncertainties in south Indian tropical dry evergreen forest

Abstract

Climate regulation services provided by tropical dry evergreen forest (TDEF), a threatened habitat of India’s Coromandel Coast, appear significant due to high carbon assimilation rates. International markets for climate regulation represent an ‘anchor service’ potentially promoting TDEF restoration, co-beneficially generating multiple linked ecosystem services. Understanding the forest type and carbon sequestration rate is essential to underpin these markets. Literature suggests that TDEF is a broad categorisation of forest types shaped by environmental conditions and human pressures, a plastic biome rather than a definitive vegetation type, though regionally representative if now highly fragmented. Previous estimates of carbon sequestration potential in restored TDEF were found to be flawed, calculated from incorrectly stated units in a source paper. Structured literature review confirms the sparsity of relevant literature, though the distinctive nature of TDEF makes data transfer from other forest types unreliable. From the limited literature, carbon sequestration potential from restoration of TDEF is of the order of 292 tC ha−1 (1071 tCO2e ha−1), subject to multiple stated assumptions and significant uncertainty that is unquantifiable based on limited data. Further research is required to quantify TDEF carbon sequestration and additional ecosystem services, expanding potential market-based restoration and informing optimal land use policies and practices.