3.11. Estimating Forest Carbon Stocks from Remotely
Sensed Data
Satellite imaging can tell us much about global carbon stocks,
but there are limits to its accuracy. Dry biomass is approximately 47.to.55
percent carbon by weight (IPCC 2006), so aboveground b iomass estimates from
remote sensing can be simply converted into aboveground carbon (AGC) stock
estimates (Gibbs et al. 2007).
Carbon emissions from deforestation and degradation depend not
only on the area of forest change but also on the associated biomass loss
(Brown, 2002). The IPCC (Penman et al., 2003a) compiled methods and good
practice guidance for determining changes in carbon stocks in association with
national inventories of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (Chapter 3 in Penman et
al., 2003a) for changes in Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF) and
with carbon sequestration projects (Penman et al., 2003a) in the first
commitment period. With the updated version of the IPCC guidelines for
conducting national GHG emissions from the
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LULUCF sector (Penman et al., 2003a; IPCC, 2006), methods are
available for estimating GHG emissions from deforestation at the national and
project scales.
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