Final Report Summary - SIFCAS (Spatially integrated forest carbon accounting system)
Spatial inventory of carbon emissions and sinks in forestry at scales from local to national significantly increases understanding of the carbon cycling and reduces uncertainty of the inventory results. The project focuses on development of advanced methodologies, which are based on explicit spatial approaches to analyze emissions/removals within a Full Verified Greenhouse Gas Account of forest ecosystems at multiple scales using a remote sensing multi-sensor concept.
GHG (mainly carbon dioxide and methane) emissions and removals in forests considerably vary from one region to another due to different forest characteristics and growing conditions (bioclimatic zone, forest type, species composition, age, disturbances, etc.). Widely used GHG inventory methods such as those developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and CORINAIR (2009) are very general and are not able to consider many important region specific parameters of interaction of forest with major global biogeochemical cycles. The IPCC Guidelines strongly encourage carrying out spatial inventories of emissions and removals in forestry as the best way to achieve reliable results of forest carbon cycling assessment and minimize uncertainty. The project has advanced the state-of-the-art by developing an integrated forest observing system (called SIFCAS) that is combined with the methodology of the Full Verified Greenhouse Gas Account which has been developing by IIASA's Ecosystem Services and Management Program. Due to fine resolution of the SIFCAS, possibility for integrated considering forest ecosystems as a whole and application of more detailed models and accounting schemes, one could expect substantially more complete and certain results that those provided according to IPCC standard recommendations.
The main results of the project include an advanced methodology for spatially explicit quantifying forest ecosystems and, as a result, present a spatially explicit carbon account for forest ecosystems of Ukraine for 2010. Comprehensive assessment of account’s uncertainties of forest carbon cycling is presented for Ukraine for the first time. The carbon account is delivered in a form of a geodatabase. This database includes several layers with required forest ecosystem parameters: tree species distribution, net primary production, biomass etc. The background layer is a tree cover mask at a 60m resolution that has been developed by fusing different remote sensing and ground sources of forest cover information of 2010. Special attention has been payed to the development of a map of abandoned agricultural land because those are the territories of potential afforestation, particularly in the Northern part of Ukraine and Poland, and require introduction of special systems of forest management. All the data is going to be of an open access.
Figures that illustrate major results are presented in Section attached document.
The received results are important for improvement of knowledge on current state and dynamics of Ukrainian forests in a changing world. They also could be used for improvement of methodology and technology of forest inventory and forest monitoring in Ukraine. The developed methodology has a particular meaning for improving the National Cadastre of GHG and increasing quality and reliability of national reporting of Ukraine to the Secretariat of IPCC. Information on the project’s results has been delivered to the State Agency of Forest Resources of Ukraine and to the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine.
The project is financed by Marie Curie individual grant FP7-MC-IIF: SIFCAS project No. 627481.
Webpage of the project: http://www.iiasa.ac.at/web/home/research/researchPrograms/EcosystemsServicesandManagement/SIFCAS.html
The output layers be found here: you have to log in and then to choose Forest Branch
GHG (mainly carbon dioxide and methane) emissions and removals in forests considerably vary from one region to another due to different forest characteristics and growing conditions (bioclimatic zone, forest type, species composition, age, disturbances, etc.). Widely used GHG inventory methods such as those developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and CORINAIR (2009) are very general and are not able to consider many important region specific parameters of interaction of forest with major global biogeochemical cycles. The IPCC Guidelines strongly encourage carrying out spatial inventories of emissions and removals in forestry as the best way to achieve reliable results of forest carbon cycling assessment and minimize uncertainty. The project has advanced the state-of-the-art by developing an integrated forest observing system (called SIFCAS) that is combined with the methodology of the Full Verified Greenhouse Gas Account which has been developing by IIASA's Ecosystem Services and Management Program. Due to fine resolution of the SIFCAS, possibility for integrated considering forest ecosystems as a whole and application of more detailed models and accounting schemes, one could expect substantially more complete and certain results that those provided according to IPCC standard recommendations.
The main results of the project include an advanced methodology for spatially explicit quantifying forest ecosystems and, as a result, present a spatially explicit carbon account for forest ecosystems of Ukraine for 2010. Comprehensive assessment of account’s uncertainties of forest carbon cycling is presented for Ukraine for the first time. The carbon account is delivered in a form of a geodatabase. This database includes several layers with required forest ecosystem parameters: tree species distribution, net primary production, biomass etc. The background layer is a tree cover mask at a 60m resolution that has been developed by fusing different remote sensing and ground sources of forest cover information of 2010. Special attention has been payed to the development of a map of abandoned agricultural land because those are the territories of potential afforestation, particularly in the Northern part of Ukraine and Poland, and require introduction of special systems of forest management. All the data is going to be of an open access.
Figures that illustrate major results are presented in Section attached document.
The received results are important for improvement of knowledge on current state and dynamics of Ukrainian forests in a changing world. They also could be used for improvement of methodology and technology of forest inventory and forest monitoring in Ukraine. The developed methodology has a particular meaning for improving the National Cadastre of GHG and increasing quality and reliability of national reporting of Ukraine to the Secretariat of IPCC. Information on the project’s results has been delivered to the State Agency of Forest Resources of Ukraine and to the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine.
The project is financed by Marie Curie individual grant FP7-MC-IIF: SIFCAS project No. 627481.
Webpage of the project: http://www.iiasa.ac.at/web/home/research/researchPrograms/EcosystemsServicesandManagement/SIFCAS.html
The output layers be found here: you have to log in and then to choose Forest Branch