Methods for assessing forest carbon stocks and stock changes have been developed as part of an EU-financed research consortium Carboinvent. The results will be utilized in GHG inventories and in creating inventory instructions to be published by the international Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The results will also be useful for several countries when they develop their inventory systems. Metla coordinated a subproject for the consortium, focusing on analysing the carbon stock changes in forest biomass.
The group managed to develop new and more reliable biomass estimation factors (BEF) for major Mediterranean and boreal coniferous tree species. For temperate-zone tree species new biomass equations were created using source data that was more extensive than the ones previously used. A calculation method based on these simple expansion factors was compared to more detailed tree-specific data and to a biomass model-based calculation by applying both methods over large areas using Swedish national forest inventory data. Both computation methods are applicable to national-scale calculations of carbon stock inventories and irrespective of the method, the most significant uncertainties relate to carbon stock assessments of young forests.
Additional information: www.metla.fi/hanke/3399/index-en.htm
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