Evaluation of the Deforestation Rate, Carbon Stock, and Resulting CO2 Emissions in a Selection of Pakistan's Salt Range Forests

Abstract

For this study, the scrub forests in the tehsil Choa Saidan Shah District of Chakwal were chosen. The objectives of the study include land-cover mapping and quantifying CO2 sequestration using the IPCC 2006 Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. Three notable l-cover classes with trees (54%) bare soil land (24.5%) and shrubs/grassland (21%) exhibiting significant potential for REDD+ activities in the research region are revealed by the LULC categorization of Sentinel-2A imaging results (2018). Based on ground data, it can be inferred that the three carbon pools of the study region contain 243,917 t of biomass, 114,989 t of carbon, and 422,009 t of CO2 equivalent in the scrub forests under examination. The mean biomass density is 12.04 t ha−1 (+5.31), while the mean carbon density is 5.72 t ha−1 (+ 2.46). There is a small difference in the mean values but a reasonable gap in total projected and field-measured biomass. The temporal analysis based on area reveals that during the previous 20 years, there has been an increase of 1,005 ha in bare soil regions, a loss of 1,029 ha in tree cover, a decrease of 19.8 ha in the area of water ponds, and an increase of 209 ha in the shrub/grassland class. It has been noted that the first ten years of the 20-year period saw more change in various land covers than the second, especially in terms of the loss of tree cover.

Presenters

Mariam Javed
Research Assistant, College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of the Punjab, Punjab, Pakistan

Details

Presentation Type

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

Theme

Ecological Realities

KEYWORDS

Co2 Emission, Deforestation, Carbon Stock, RSGis, Redd, Forests, Pakistan