Aboveground biomass and carbon stock of Usambara tropical Rainforests in Tanzania
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Date
2021
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Tanzania Journal of Forestry and Nature Conservation
Abstract
Forest Above ground biomass (AGB) and
carbon stock (AGC) estimation is important
for carbon budget accounting, sustainable
forest management as well as for
understanding the role of forest ecosystem in
the climate change mitigation. In the recent
decade, there has been a growing global
interest on quantifying AGB and AGC in the
tropical countries. However, the information
on AGB and AGC at local and subnational
scales in most of the tropical forests is
scattered and not consolidated. In this study,
we reviewed the existing information on
AGB and AGC for tropical rainforests of
northern Tanzania. We used both data
published in the peer-reviewed literature and
data from unpublished sources provided by
various sources.
Our results showed that, there are three types
of data sources and methods used for
estimation of AGB and AGC. These
included, field, geographical information
system and remote sensing. Of all the
methods, field based method was applied to
a large extent. The average reported
minimum values of AGB and AGC are
177.00 Mg ha -1 and 88.5 Mg ha -1 , and the
maximum average values are 872 Mg ha -1
and 436 Mg ha -1 respectively. Overall, the
average values of AGB and AGC in the
Usambara tropical mountain forests
(UTMFs) are 351.08 Mg ha -1 and 175.54 Mg
ha -1
respectively.
Forest
structure
parameters, particularly tree sizes and
number of tree stems, were the major
structure parameters reported to affect the amount of AGB and AGC. To conclude, the
study revealed that there is a progressive
trend in the estimation of AGB and AGC in
the UTMFs. However, more update and
effective forest survey data and methods are
needed particularly in west Usambara
mountain forests block.
Description
Journal Article
Keywords
Above ground biomass, carbon stock, climate change, tropical rainforest