The relevance of using in situ carbon and nitrogen data and satellite images to assess aboveground carbon and nitrogen stocks for supporting national REDD + programmes in Africa

Adéyèmi Chabi; Sven Lautenbach; Jérôme Ebagnerin Tondoh; Vincent Oladokoun Agnila Orekan; Stephen Adu-Bredu; Nicholas Kyei-Baffour; Vincent Joseph Mama; John Fonweban

doi:10.1186/s13021-019-0127-7

The relevance of using in situ carbon and nitrogen data and satellite images to assess aboveground carbon and nitrogen stocks for supporting national REDD + programmes in Africa

Carbon Balance Manag. 2019 Sep 10;14(1):12. doi: 10.1186/s13021-019-0127-7.

Authors

Adéyèmi Chabi^{1

2}, Sven Lautenbach^{3

4}, Jérôme Ebagnerin Tondoh⁵, Vincent Oladokoun Agnila Orekan⁶, Stephen Adu-Bredu⁷, Nicholas Kyei-Baffour⁸, Vincent Joseph Mama⁹, John Fonweban¹⁰

Affiliations

¹ Department of Geography, University of Parakou, Parakou, Republic of Benin. princechabi@gmail.com.
² West African Science Service Centre On Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL), Competence Centre Ouagadougou, 06 BP 9507 Ouaga 06, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. princechabi@gmail.com.
³ GIScience Research Group, Institute of Geography, University of Heidelberg, Mathematikon, Berliner Str. 45, 4. OG, Raum 004, Heidelberg, Germany.
⁴ Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformation, University of Bonn, Nussallee 1, 53115, Bonn, Germany.
⁵ West African Science Service Centre On Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL), Competence Centre Ouagadougou, 06 BP 9507 Ouaga 06, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
⁶ Department of Geography, University of Abomey-Calavi, BP 677, Abomey-Calavi, Republic of Benin.
⁷ CSIR-Forestry Research Institute of Ghana, Tryft, University P.O. Box 63, Kumasi, Ghana.
⁸ Departments of Agricultural Engineering, The College of Engineering, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana.
⁹ National Institute for Agricultural Research of Benin (INRAB), 06 BP 1105, Cotonou, Benin.
¹⁰ Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Regional Office for Africa (RAF), Accra, Ghana.

Abstract

Background: To reduce the uncertainty in estimates of carbon emissions resulting from deforestation and forest degradation, better information on the carbon density per land use/land cover (LULC) class and in situ carbon and nitrogen data is needed. This allows a better representation of the spatial distribution of carbon and nitrogen stocks across LULC. The aim of this study was to emphasize the relevance of using in situ carbon and nitrogen content of the main tree species of the site when quantifying the aboveground carbon and nitrogen stocks in the context of carbon accounting. This paper contributes to that, by combining satellite images with in situ carbon and nitrogen content in dry matter of stem woods together with locally derived and published allometric models to estimate aboveground carbon and nitrogen stocks at the Dassari Basin in the Sudan Savannah zone in the Republic of Benin.

Results: The estimated mean carbon content per tree species varied from 44.28 ± 0.21% to 49.43 ± 0.27%. The overall mean carbon content in dry matter for the 277 wood samples of the 18 main tree species of the region was 47.01 ± 0.28%-which is close to the Tier 1 coefficient of 47% default value suggested by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The overall mean fraction of nitrogen in dry matter was estimated as 0.229 ± 0.016%. The estimated mean carbon density varied from 1.52 ± 0.14 Mg C ha^-1 (for Cropland and Fallow) to 97.83 ± 27.55 Mg C ha^-1 (for Eucalyptus grandis Plantation). In the same order the estimated mean nitrogen density varied from 0.008 ± 0.007 Mg ha^-1 of N (for Cropland and Fallow) to 0.321 ± 0.088 Mg ha^-1 of N (for Eucalyptus grandis Plantation).

Conclusion: The results show the relevance of using the in situ carbon and nitrogen content of the main tree species for estimating aboveground carbon and nitrogen stocks in the Sudan Savannah environment. The results provide crucial information for carbon accounting programmes related to the implementation of the REDD + initiatives in developing countries.

Keywords: Aboveground; Africa; Assess; Carbon; In situ; Nitrogen; REDD + programmes; Relevance; Sudan Savannah.