Climate change mitigation: annual carbon balance accounting and mapping in the national forest ecosystems (continental Portugal)

• Autor(a) principal: Ameray, Abderrahmane
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10198/18257
• topic: Carbon balance; Photosynthetic sequestration; Greenhouse gases emissions; MODIS; IPCC; Climate change; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Agrárias::Agricultura, Silvicultura e Pescas

We present in this article the carbon balance accounting and mapping in the Portugal continental forests (Mediterranean forest), which occupies 36% of the national territory, mostly private (93%). These forests are characterized by their economic, social and environmental importance values, but during these last years, they are undergoing natural and anthropogenic disturbances and also a strong wood demand for supplying the industry sector. The first goal of this study was to quantify the different components of the carbon (C) cycle, gain and losses, using atmospheric flow approach (gain-loss approach) developed by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The carbon gain reflects the yearly photosynthetic sequestration. The carbon losses reflect the different yearly disturbances like fires, forest logging, pests and diseases attacks. This method allows us to assess the carbon balance evolution from 1995 until 2014 and to identify the most important species in climate change mitigation regarding the air purification or the greenhouse gases emissions contribution. Our second purpose is mapping the carbon-density areas with two different approaches, firstly the direct Remote Sensing (DRS) approach using MODIS images, secondly the indirect approach named Combine and Assign (CA) Approach. MODIS images allow the accounting of Net Primary Productivity (NPP) which presents the quantity of carbon absorbed by vegetation cover during a period of time as a key indicator of ecosystem performance. The CA Approach combines remote sensing and field data in GIS environment to assess the yearly carbon sequestration for each ecozone and the carbon losses by fires in 2010, using the atmospheric flow proposed by IPCC. Our third objective is to link the NPP in 2017 derived from MOD17A3 (MODIS product) with abiotic factors (precipitation, temperature, elevation), to find the best conditions for carbon sequestration. Several geostatistical technics were tested to interpolate climatic factors for all the country. Towards the end, mitigation measures will be proposed.