Abstract
ABSTRACTQuantifying forest carbon storage and its spatial distribution at regional scales is critical for the creation of greenhouse gases inventories, the evaluation of forest services and carbon-oriented forest management. The plot-based forest inventory (PBFI) and stand-based forest inventory (SBFI) collect extensive information on trees and stands respectively, and together, provide an opportunity to improve the regional estimates of forest carbon. In this study, we applied the SBFI to overcome the spatial extent limits of the PBFI in neighboring plots and improve the regional carbon estimation. We found that the forests in Sichuan Province reserved a total of 624.2 Tg C in biomass and featured a large spatial heterogeneity, with high values in natural forests and low values in plantations. We found that the solo use of PBFI derived a slightly higher (46.63 Mg C/ha) estimation on average compared with the integrated method (43.6 Mg C/ha). However, when considering the spatial distribution, the PBFI generated an overestimation of young forests located between 3000and 4000 m in elevation, and an underestimation in mature forests. The spatially explicit biomass carbon estimation could be helpful in guiding regional forest management and biodiversity conservation.
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