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This pilot study aims to estimate the impact of the internal stem decay on wood basic density in grey alder stems. Accurate estimates of stem biomass are crucial in reducing the uncertainty in the estimation of forest stand biomass. The density data were obtained from 21 decayed trees and from 15 healthy trees as reference sampled in five forest stands in Latvia. In total, the densities of 401 intact wood, 212 discoloured wood and 117 spongy rot specimens were measured obtained from the cross-cut discs of sampled trees. The Kruskal Wallis test was used to determine the statistically significant differences between mean values of intact wood, discoloured wood and spongy rot basic density. Our analysis revealed that mean basic density of intact wood differed significantly (p < 0.01) from the mean values of discoloured wood – 361.3 kg m-3 and spongy rot – 240.9 kg m-3 suggesting that decrease in wood density due to the internal decay must be taken into account for the stem biomass calculations. Our findings indicate that spongy rot incidence varied strongly between individual forest stands, from 2.4% – 80.9%. Other studies have confirmed that not only the density but also the carbon content of wood varies by its decomposition process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest is one of the main sources of carbon stock. Forest plays a key role in sustainable management by providing different aspects of forest ecosystem such as source of timber products, provide of clean water, food sources, etc. A study was conducted to assess carbon pools in selected production forest of Pahang, Malaysia. There are five main types of carbon pools that are recognized available in the forest, i.e. aboveground biomass (AGB), belowground biomass (BGB), deadwood, litter and soil; that these components of carbon pools can accumulate and release carbon into the atmosphere. Five sites with different years of logging period representing status of the forest were selected (i.e. before logging (PU), immediate after logging (P0), after 10 (P10), 20 (P20) and 30 (P30) years of logging). Twenty plots of 0.25 ha (50 m × 50 m) each were established with a total sampling area of 1.0 ha at each site. All trees with >10 cm diameter at breast height (dbh) were tagged, identified and measured. Soil at 0-30 cm, litter and dead wood were sampled and collected in every each of sub-plots to determine and assess carbon stocks within sites. The results indicated that AGB carbon had highest portion of carbon compared to soil, BGB, deadwood and litter, which comprised about 63% of the total carbon pools. It was followed by soil and BGB that comprised about 22% and 13%, respectively. Deadwood and litter contributes the same percentage which is about 1%. In terms of status of the forest, AGB contained the highest carbon which is range from 110.49 tC ha-1 to 164.49 tC ha-1 compared with soil (33.72 tC ha-1 to 68.51 tC ha-1), BGB (22.85 tC ha-1 to 34 tC ha-1), deadwood (1.57 tC ha-1 to 5.55 tC ha-1) and litter (1.42 tC ha-1 to 2.19 tC ha-1). Results from this study will be very helpful as baseline of carbon storage in different status of forest from before harvesting to loggedover forest and the impact of harvesting on the carbon stock in Pahang and Peninsular Malaysia as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper gives an overview of French studies realized in the frame of the CNES (French Space Agency) working group on spaceborne lidar missions. These studies include (1) the development of forest scenery and radiative transfer models for the simulation of lidar waveforms under forest cover, (2) preliminary instrumental studies to ensure the feasibility of the scientific requirements and (3) evaluation and improvement of inversion methods to retrieve forest parameters from large footprint lidar data. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper aims to develop an operational methodology for monitoring spatial and temporal changes due to deforestation in Selangor over a 22 year period. The driving forces determining the changes were also analysed. Overall, the results show that the causes of deforestation were the economic factors, namely agriculture intensification, and population dynamics, related to the process of urbanization. However, deforestation statistics shows only a total of 10 percent decrease; it is the degradation of the remaining forest that is the major concern. Knowledge on deforestation and its driving forces in Selangor is very important as it provides the basis for the calculation of the total amount of carbon stock above ground. It also gives insight into the appropriate intervention measures that can be taken to increase carbon stock, thus reducing the release of carbon dioxide emission to the atmosphere. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The upper region of Rio Negro basin is characterized by the occurrence of extensive Podzol zones. These soils have a great capacity of stocking high contents of carbon, thus it is important to understand the spatial distribution of Podzols to quantify the carbon content stored on the Amazon biome. Due the lack of studies developed on this region, remote sensing techniques would be helpful on the indirect spatialization and quantification of total carbon stored on Amazon Podzols. Therefore this study aimed to propose association methods between remote sensing images and field sample data, for mapping carbon stocks on Amazon Podzols. As a result it was observed that a multisensor approach was crucial for the proper segmentation of vegetation groups and spatial distribution of areas with different soil water regimes, based on filed sample data and remote sensing images (sensors: PALSAR/ALOS; ETM/Landsat 7). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]