Historic land use and carbon estimates for South and Southeast Asia: 1880--1980

摘要

This document describes the contents of a digital data base containing estimates of land use change and the carbon content of vegetation for South and Southeast Asia for the years 1880, 1920, 1950, 1970, and 1980. These data were originally collected for climate modelers, so they could reduce the uncertainty associated with the magnitude and time course of historical land use change and of carbon release. For this data base, South and Southeast Asia is defined as the countries of India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Laos, Kampuchea (Cambodia), Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The most important change in land use over the 100 year period was the conversion of 107 (times) 10(sup 6) ha of forest/woodland to categories with lower biomass. Land thus transformed accounted for 13.5% of the total area of the study region. The estimated total carbon content of live vegetation in South and Southeast Asia has dropped progressively, from 59 (times) 10(sup 9) Mg in 1880 to 27 (times) 10(sup 9) Mg in 1980. Throughout the study period the carbon stock in forests was greater than the carbon content in all other categories combined, although its share of the total declined progressively from 81% in 1880 to 73% in 1980. The data base itself was developed in Lotus 1-2-3(trademark) using a sequential bookkeeping model. The source data were obtained at the local and regional level for each country from official agricultural and economic statistics from historical geographic and demographic texts, reports, and articles; and from any other available source. Because of boundary changes through time and disparities between the validity, availability, and scale of the data for each country, the data were aggregated into 94 ecological zones. The resulting data base contains land use and carbon information for 94 ecological zones and national totals for 13 countries.