Estimation of carbon sequestration based on two different methods: A case study of Artvin Forest Sub-District Directorate

• Main Authors: Hacı Yolasığmaz, Burak Çavdar, Ufuk Demirci, İnci Aydın
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Isparta University of Applied Sciences Faculty of Forestry 2016-03-01
• Series: Turkish Journal of Forestry
• Subjects: -; karbon birikimi; biyokütle; artvin orman i̇şletme şefliği
• Online Access: https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/tjf/issue/20906/224547?publisher=iubu

Growing population, industrialization and destruction of natural sources have caused carbon emission to reach critical threshold, which accordingly resulted in global problems such as; global warming and climate change. Main sources of these problems are hazardous gases on the air, particularly; carbon dioxide. The main component of carbon dioxide, carbon is stored in the soil, water and forests. According to the agreement against global climate change, most of the countries that signed the agreement are expected to measure gas amounts that they save in their forest areas and the amount of contaminating gases that are exhausted to the atmosphere. Since the subject was under debate, carbon amounts kept in the forest areas are measured by biomass calculations. The first data measured all across the country were calculated by ASAN using indices that were developed for coniferous and broad-leaved forests separately; recently, these data are measured by including damaged areas as a separate item, similar to the approach in FRA-2010 guide. It can be seen that there is a significant increase in the carbon amounts kept in the forest areas in Turkey along with increasing number of forest areas and recovery in structure. This study, which aims to show the differences between the two methods, seeks to identify the effects of different formulas and indices on total amount of carbon stocks in Artvin Forest Sub-district Directorate. As a result, carbon amounts in the study area were calculated with each method and there were significant differences found between the two methods. When different indices are used for productive and damaged areas, the approximate increase in carbon amount is 54% with an approximate 65% decrease in carbon amount in forest soil.