Document: COE-3-66-16

Constructing standing carbon budgets for individual forests: Can forest inventory and analysis data provide a shortcut?

HOOVER, C.M.*, R.A.BIRDSEY and L.S.HEATH

USDA Forest Sevice, Newtown Square, PA, USA ¹

Abstract:
The Kyoto Protocol permits the use of forested lands as carbon sinks for the purposes of constructing national carbon budgets. This has led to increased interest in developing carbon budgets for US forest lands. Often, these efforts are hampered by the lack of detailed forest inventory data. We tested the feasibility of using data from the USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program to estimate forest composition and standing carbon. Two forests of different acreages (approx. 53,000 and 38,000 acres) were tested, and the results compared to the actual forest inventory data. FIA data failed to accurately represent age class distribution, forest composition, and standing carbon in both cases. There were no systematic differences; in one case FIA data overestimated standing carbon by 23%, but forest composition projections were fairly accurate. In the other forest, carbon was underestimated by only 6%, but age class and forest composition projections were inaccurate. Based on this analysis, FIA data should not be used to develop carbon budgets for smaller forests (forests over 53,000 acres have not yet been tested).

Keywords: carbon budgets, forest inventory

This abstract is being presented at: 4:15 PM in session:
Oral Session #52: Carbon Storage in Ecosystems.