AI Article Synopsis
- Carbon stock estimates are essential for understanding climate change and managing landscapes, but forest fragmentation negatively impacts carbon storage at forest edges.
- Analysis of remote sensing data shows that biomass within the first 500 meters of forest edges is on average 25% lower than in forest interiors, with a 10% reduction extending up to 1.5 kilometers from the edge.
- These results suggest that current methods for estimating carbon stocks may overstate values by nearly 10%, highlighting the need for more accurate assessments to improve forest management policies.
Article Abstract
Carbon stock estimates based on land cover type are critical for informing climate change assessment and landscape management, but field and theoretical evidence indicates that forest fragmentation reduces the amount of carbon stored at forest edges. Here, using remotely sensed pantropical biomass and land cover data sets, we estimate that biomass within the first 500 m of the forest edge is on average 25% lower than in forest interiors and that reductions of 10% extend to 1.5 km from the forest edge. These findings suggest that IPCC Tier 1 methods overestimate carbon stocks in tropical forests by nearly 10%. Proper accounting for degradation at forest edges will inform better landscape and forest management and policies, as well as the assessment of carbon stocks at landscape and national levels.
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Source |
|---|---|
| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4703854 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms10158 | DOI Listing |
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