Impacts of land use/cover change on terrestrial carbon stocks in Uganda

Abstract

Land use/cover change, especially conversion and degradation of forest land, is the key factor causing terrestrial carbon stocks declines in Uganda. How local ecological assemblages are responding is less clear—a concern given their importance for many ecosystem functions and services. The main objectives are to assess status and variation in carbon stocks across land covers and quantify spatial distribution and dynamic variation of terrestrial carbon stocks in response to land use/cover change. This paper presents a methodology for quantifying and assessing changes in carbon stocks as a result of land use change using the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) model. The model was used to map and quantify carbon stocks for Uganda for 2006 and 2010 land use conditions. Our result showed that the total carbon stocks have a sharp decline from 2.42 billion Tg C in 2006 to 1.72 billion Tg C in 2010 in aboveground, belowground and soil. During 2006 to 2010, losses in carbon stocks from land use and land cover were 705.59 million Tg C. To be more specific, estimated carbon stocks in Uganda decreased 849.94 million Tg C because forest land changed to other land use and covers. Cultivated land change, which is from other types of land, resulting in carbon stocks decreased 71.11 million Tg C, and estimated carbon stocks increased 177.34 million Tg C with grassland changed to other land use and covers. Finally, we suggested potential policy measures to mitigate negative effects of land use and cover change on carbon stocks in Uganda.