Global estimates of carbon stock changes in living forest biomass: EDGARv4.3 – time series from 1990 to 2010

摘要

While the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) focuseson global estimates for the full set of anthropogenic activities, theLand Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) sector might be the mostdiverse and most challenging to cover consistently for all countries of the world.Parties to United NationsFramework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are required to provide periodic estimates of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, following the latest approved methodological guidance by theInternational Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The current study aims toconsistently estimate the carbon (C) stock changesfrom living forest biomass for all countries of the world, in order to complete the LULUCF sector in EDGAR.In order to derive comparable estimates for developing and developedcountries, it is crucial to use a single methodology with globalapplicability. Data for developing countries are generally poor, such thatonly the Tier 1 methods from either the IPCC Good Practice Guide for Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (GPG-LULUCF) 2003 or theIPCC 2006 Guidelines can be applied to these countries. For this purpose, weapplied the IPCC Tier 1 method at global level following both IPCC GPG-LULUCF 2003 andIPCC 2006, using spatially coarse activity data (i.e. area, obtainedcombining two different global forest maps: the Global Land Cover map andthe eco-zones subdivision of the Global Ecological Zone (GEZ) map) in combinationwith the IPCC default C stocks and C stock change factors. Results for the Cstock changes were calculated separately for gains, harvest,fires (Global Fire Emissions Database version 3, GFEDv.3) and net deforestation for theyears 1990, 2000, 2005 and 2010. At the global level, results obtained withthe two sets of IPCC guidance differed by about 40 %, due to differentassumptions and default factors. The IPCC Tier 1 method unavoidablyintroduced high uncertainties due to the "globalization" of parameters.When the results using IPCC 2006 for Annex I Parties are compared to otherinternational datasets such as (UNFCCC, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)) or scientific publications, a significant overestimation of the sink emerges. For developing countries, weconclude that C stock change in forest remaining forest can hardly beestimated with the Tier 1 method especially for calculating the C losses, mainlybecause wood removal data are not separately available on harvesting ordeforestation. Overall, confronting the IPCC GPG-LULUCF 2003 and IPCC 2006 methodologies, weconclude that IPCC 2006 suits best the needs of EDGAR and provide aconsistent global picture of C stock changes from living forest biomassindependent of country estimates.