As countries advance in greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting for climate change mitigation, consistent estimates of aboveground net biomass change ( increment AGB) are needed. Countries with limited forest monitoring capabilities in the tropics and subtropics rely on IPCC 2006 default increment AGB rates, which are values per ecological zone, per continent. Similarly, research into forest biomass change at a large scale also makes use of these rates. IPCC 2006 default rates come from a handful of studies, provide no uncertainty indications and do not distinguish between older secondary forests and old-growth forests. As part of the 2019 Refinement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, we incorporate increment AGB data available from 2006 onwards, comprising 176 chronosequences in secondary forests and 536 permanent plots in old-growth and managed/logged forests located in 42 countries in Africa, North and South America and Asia. We generated increment AGB rate estimates for younger secondary forests (<= 20 years), older secondary forests (>20 years and up to 100 years) and old-growth forests, and accounted for uncertainties in our estimates. In tropical rainforests, for which data availability was the highest, our increment AGB rate estimates ranged from 3.4 (Asia) to 7.6 (Africa) Mg ha(-1) year(-1) in younger secondary forests, from 2.3 (North and South America) to 3.5 (Africa) Mg ha(-1) year(-1) in older secondary forests, and 0.7 (Asia) to 1.3 (Africa) Mg ha(-1) year(-1) in old-growth forests. We provide a rigorous and traceable refinement of the IPCC 2006 default rates in tropical and subtropical ecological zones, and identify which areas require more research on increment AGB. In this respect, this study should be considered as an important step towards quantifying the role of tropical and subtropical forests as carbon sinks with higher accuracy; our new rates can be used for large-scale GHG accounting by governmental bodies, nongovernmental organizations and in scientific research.
1.Wageningen Univ & Res, Lab Geoinformat Sci & Remote Sensing, Wageningen, Netherlands 2.Wageningen Univ & Res, Plant Prod Syst Grp, Wageningen, Netherlands 3.Wageningen Univ & Res, Ctr Crop Syst Anal, Wageningen, Netherlands 4.Univ Leeds, Sch Geog, Leeds, W Yorkshire, England 5.Univ Nacl Abierta & Distancia, Escuela Ciencias Agr Pecuarias & Ambientales, Bogota, Colombia 6.Fdn ConVida, Medellin, Colombia 7.Smithsonian Conservat Biol Inst, Conservat Ecol Ctr, Front Royal, VA USA 8.Smithsonian Trop Res Inst, Ctr Trop Forest Sci, Forest Global Earth Observ, Panama City, Panama 9.Univ Autonoma Gabriel Rene Moreno, Museo Hist Nat Noel Kempff Mercado, Santa Cruz, Bolivia 10.Univ Autonoma Gabriel Rene Moreno, Santa Cruz, Bolivia 11.Wageningen Univ & Res, Forest Ecol & Forest Management Grp, Wageningen, Netherlands 12.Nature Conservancy, 1815 N Lynn St, Arlington, VA USA 13.Univ Exeter, Coll Life & Environm Sci, Geog, Exeter, Devon, England 14.World Resources Inst, Washington, DC 20006 USA 15.Univ Montpellier, CIRAD, UR Forests & Soc, Montpellier, France 16.Inst Natl Polytech Felix Houphouet Boigny, Yamoussoukro, Cote Ivoire 17.Inst Invest Amazonia Peruana, Iquitos, Peru 18.UCL, Dept Geog, London, England 19.Univ Estado Mato Grosso, Campus Nova Xavantina, Nova Xavantina, Brazil 20.Jardin Bot Missouri, Oxapampa, Peru 21.Univ Nacl San Antonio Abad Cusco, Cuzco, Peru 22.Univ Felix Houphouet Boigny, Lab Bot, UFR Biosci, Abidjan, Cote Ivoire 23.Univ Lincoln, Sch Life Sci, Lincoln, England 24.Univ Yaounde, Plant Systemat & Ecol Lab, Yaounde, Cameroon 25.Univ Andes, Merida, Venezuela 26.Univ Washington, Sch Environm & Forest Sci, Seattle, WA 98195 USA 27.Univ Sheffield, Dept Anim & Plant Sci, Sheffield, S Yorkshire, England 28.Ctr Int Forestry Res CIFOR, Bogor, Indonesia
Recommended Citation:
Suarez, Daniela Requena,Rozendaal, Danae M. A.,De Sy, Veronique,et al. Estimating aboveground net biomass change for tropical and subtropical forests: Refinement of IPCC default rates using forest plot data[J]. GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY,2019-01-01