Carbon Sequestration Capacity of Forest
Indicator Details
Themes
Sensitive habitats
PSBR model type
Benefits (B)
Corresponding targets
SDGs
15.1 By 2020, ensure the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems and their services, in particular forests, wetlands, mountains and drylands, in line with obligations under international agreements.
Aichi Biodiversity Targets
Target 15: By 2020, ecosystem resilience and the contribution of biodiversity to carbon stocks has been enhanced, through conservation and restoration, including restoration of at least 15 percent of degraded ecosystems, thereby contributing to climate change mitigation and adaptation and to combating desertification.
Biodiversity Action Plan
D00008 Establish forest cover data (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, NDVI) and assessment and monitoring on forest health. Key performance indicator of the action plan:
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Estimate the forest cover in Taiwan
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The ratio of forest cover under forest health monitoring and assessment to national forest cover
Background
Forest carbon sequestration is the total amount of carbon dioxide removed by forests per unit of time. In 1997, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the United Nations included land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF) into the Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. Carbon emissions and carbon removals caused by changes in land use, forest, and other woody biomass accumulations after 1990 were estimated in the guideline. The Spatial Planning Act and Forest Act in Taiwan have stipulated regulations for changes in forestry land and forest harvesting, and the ban on logging of natural forests has been implemented since 1992. As a result, there have been very few cases where forest land is changed to other uses. Therefore, we can use the forest area obtained in the Third& Fourth National Forest Resources Survey (conducted by Forestry Bureau, Council of Agriculture), as well as the forestry data on annual new planting, harvesting, fuelwood harvesting, and disturbances, etc., to estimate the annual carbon sequestration by Taiwan’s forest resources. Forest carbon sequestration has attracted much attention because of their significant ability of carbon sequestration and emission reduction and high non-carbon benefits. It has become one of the important methods to reduce greenhouse gas emissions internationally.
Definition and Calculation
Changes in the total carbon dioxide removed by Taiwan's forest resources each year. The increased sequestration volume of "forest remains forest" and "other land use type changes to forests" can be estimated using the results of the Third& Fourth National Forest Resources Survey (conducted by Forestry Bureau, Council of Agriculture). The obtained volume is then multiplied by the activity data and deduct the amount of forest area loss caused by disasters, to estimate the forest carbon sequestration inventory.
The data and temporal range
Annual carbon dioxide removed by the overall forest resources in Taiwan (1990–2017)
Trends
The estimation results show that the amount of carbon dioxide removed by forest resources in 2017 was 21.48 million metric tons, which is similar to the result in 2016. From 1990 to 2017, the amount of carbon dioxide removed by forest resources changed from 19 to 23.5 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. The 1991 Tataka forest fire and the 2009 Morakot typhoon disaster caused a large amount of forest timber loss, resulting in declines of carbon dioxide removed by forests in 1991 and 2010. The amounts in other years are mostly stable.
Data Management Authorities
Forestry Bureau, Council of Agriculture
Data sources / URL
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Forestry Bureau, Council of Agriculture (2017) The collection of reports of "Establishing a Data Integration and Analysis Mechanism for Long-term Forest Monitoring and Survey and The National Forestry Greenhouse Gas Inventory"