Review of Methods and Potential Role of Remote Sensing for Forest Carbon Stock Measurement: A Pilot Project for REDD+, Thailand

Abstract

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation in developing countries (REDD+) has been widely discussed as an important option to mitigate climate change. The idea of REDD+ is to reward forest-borne greenhouse gases (GHG) as an emitting agent. REDD+ is one of the potential organizations in the reducing emissions with low cost and achievable in short time frame. REDD+ also contains much potential in promoting environmental co-benefit activities such as biodiversity conservations and enhancement of soil and water qualities. At present, many REDD+ demonstrated activities are being implemented at global levels. Efforts were made to develop and apply a proper monitoring system to estimate the emissions from deforested and forest degraded lands. It had been reported that the cost-effective monitoring system in REDD+ required a balance between remote sensing and ground based measurements. The system would provide reliable and lucid area information including forest type distribution that elucidated the carbon stocks of any countries. Both ground based and remote sensing measurements of forest attributes might be converted into national carbon stock estimates using allometric relationships. In this paper, the map and updated biomass carbon databases of prominent forests were synthesized to create the first complete set of national level forest carbon stock estimates.