gis contribution an objective assessment of …...dr. boris moiseev llc «lesnoye delo», 3...

GIS CONTRIBUTION AN OBJECTIVE ASSESSMENT OF CARBON SINK IN THE RUSSIAN FORESTS

Nataliya Malysheva, Tatiana Zolina, Andrey Filipchuk, Boris Moiseev

Dr., Ass. Prof. Nataliya Malysheva All-Russian Research Institute for Silviculture and Mechanization of Forestry (FBU ARRISMF), Federal Forestry Agency, 15 Institutskaya str., Pushkino, Moscow region, Russia, 141200 Telephone: +7(495) 9933054, Fax: +7(495) 9933054, e-mail: [email protected] Senior Researcher, Tatina Zolina All-Russian Research Institute for Silviculture and Mechanization of Forestry (FBU ARRISMF), Federal Forestry Agency, 15 Institutskaya str., Pushkino, Moscow region, Russia, 141200 e-mail: [email protected] Dr., Prof. Andrey Filipchuk All-Russian Research Institute for Silviculture and Mechanization of Forestry (FBU ARRISMF), Federal Forestry Agency, 15 Institutskaya str., Pushkino, Moscow region, Russia, 141200 e-mail: [email protected] Dr. Boris Moiseev LLC «Lesnoye Delo», 3 Rubtsovskaya embankment, Moscow, Russia, 105082 e-mail:[email protected]

Abstract In the context of the Paris Agreement, the problem of objective and complete accounting of the carbon sink in Russia’s forests is of a great importance. The agreement gives a reason for revising practices and improving assessments of carbon sink and carbon balance in Russia’s forests. According to Global Forest Resource Assessment FAO UN (2015), the area of Russian forests has reached 20% total forest area of the world. Forests cover 67% of the territory of the Russian Federation and are important for stabilizing climate in the country, as well as on the planet. The latest National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report under the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) and the Kyoto Protocol (2017) underestimate the carbon sink in Russian forests. The upgraded methodology of calculating the sequestration capacity of Russian forests has been developed and discussed. GIS support of the methodology contributed to: More accurate localization of the accounting categories of inventory; Stratification of forests and forest management units, according to the forest site-growth conditions; Differentiate the biomass expansion factor for the conversion of merchantable stock volume to aboveground tree biomass and other parameters of calculations depending on forest stratification. All operations performed by ArcGIS due to the available functionality and geospatial data analysis. More accurate localization of accounting categories, rethinking and expansion of the list of categories being a subject of accounting, stratification of forests and forest management units, the elimination of methodological ambiguities give a more objective assessment of the Russian forest carbon sink. New assessment with upgraded methodology following the IPCC and based on State Forest Register data for 2015 Net Ecosystem Production (NEP) of the Russian forests is about 630±110 million tons С/year including about 140 million tons C/year accumulated in dead biomass. According to our research, a total gain of carbon sink compared to latest National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report would be about 340 million tons C/year. The results of carbon accumulation and carbon balance assessments presented on the maps Keywords: Russian forests, GIS, carbon sink, carbon balance assessment, net ecosystem production (NEP).

Proceedings, 7th International Conference on Cartography and GIS, 18-23 June 2018, Sozopol, Bulgaria ISSN: 1314-0604, Eds: Bandrova T., Konečný M.

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INTRODUCTION

Russia’s forests cover 20% of the world forest area (Global Forest Resources Assessment, 2015), their carbon stocks in living biomass makes up 11% of that of the world. They significantly contribute to the carbon balance of the planet and represent an important factor in combating climate change. Practices within the Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry sector (LULUCF) could be both a source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and greenhouse gas removals by sinks achieved due to sustainable forest management. Emissions are caused by deforestation, fires, harvesting and wood-removals, etc. Thus, land use and forestry policies nowadays and in perspective by the time the Paris Agreement takes place (after 2020) comprise a greater potential to mitigate climate change effect especially by CO2 accumulation in forests. The experts predict the LULUCF sector by 2030 will allow for 25% reduction of all GHG emissions submitted in Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) by the countries that signed Paris Agreement (Krug, 2018; Forsell et al., 2016). Russia’s LULUCF sector compensates currently for 20% of all other sectors/industry’s emissions (National inventory report, 2017). Russia within the framework of the Paris Agreement voluntarily committed to reduce GHG emission (as of 1990) by 25-30% by 2030 on the condition that carbon sequestration in the forests is taken into account. When insisting on separate counting of forests in the Paris Agreement Russia draws the attention to national forests that play a significant role in global climate change combatting and also demonstrates support of the policies aimed to preserve and maintain forest lands, to increase carbon stock, and to reaffirm the importance of promoting non-carbon benefits (http://unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9485.php).

The assessment of the forest management, forest use, reproduction and protection policies, and the way they mitigate climate change subsequences, implies regular surveys of GHG emissions and removals on forest lands. In order to make this assessment, national GHG inventories are conducted within the LULUCF sector. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) experts work on methodology and requirements for preparation of national GHG inventory data. The results are published in national reports and national communications under the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol. Such reports in Russia are prepared by scientific institutions and regional subdivisions of the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (Roshydromet), which also develop procedures of estimating greenhouse gas emissions by sources and removals by sinks.

The Paris Agreement motivates the improvement of methods of estimating CO2 volumes absorbed by the Russian forests and the objective assessment of CO2 emissions caused by certain LULUCF practices. The Russian forests carbon sink capabilities were assessed by various scientific teams, yet these estimates result differ and show a high level of uncertainty. The carbon sink counting in the Russian forests carried out by independent Russian and foreign research teams, for example, presented: 173 Mt C/year (National inventory report, 2017), 520±99 Mt C/year (Pan et al., 2011), 690 Mt C/year (Dolman et al., 2012), 800 Mt C/year (Kudeyarov, 2005). So substantial differences in estimates could be explained not only by different methods and data sources, but also by different terminology interpretations and methodology inaccuracies when the counting applied to the same data. Two teams, for example, carried out their assessment using publicly available forestry statistic data (State Forest Register data) and IPCC methodology but the results vary substantially. The seventh national communication presented by the Russian Federation under the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol estimated net carbon sink in the Russian forests in 2015 as 173 Mt C/year, (http://unfccc.int/files/national_reports/annex_i_natcom_/application/pdf/20394615_russian_federation-nc7-1-7nc.pdf) while the other research work (Filipchuk et al., 2017) as 520 Mt C/year. Therefore, the problem with objective assessment of carbon sink in the Russian forests is still there and calls for more research.

GIS support of the Russian forests carbon sink and balance assessments is usually limited to cartographic visual presentations of the results (Zamolodchikov et al., 2014). The only exceptions are the research works of the team from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). The Integrated Land Information System IIASA provides with the facility to download the field, remote sensing, landscape, vegetation and soil data and process the necessary information getting the parameters for counting carbon sink and balance in Russia’s forests (Schepaschenko et al., 2015).

The analysis of different studies (Zamolodchikov et al., 2014, Moiseev & Filipchuk, 2009) reveals that total carbon stock, annual carbon absorption and all in all carbon balance assessment accuracy depends on the proper way assessment categories are defined and inventories counting entities are stratified and spatially referenced.

The research is aimed: to stratify forests with GIS support by site-growth (site-specific) conditions and productivity; to group GHG inventory counting entities of LULUCF sector by strata; to produce maps that present the results of counting forest carbon stock, annual net carbon increment, and carbon balance.

Implementation of GIS instruments is a component of the methodology we worked out for counting CO2 absorption by forest lands of the Russian Federation and further referenced as Methodology (Metodika, 2017). The basis of the


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Methodology is formed by IPCC recommendations (Good Practice, 2003; Guidelines, 2006) and international legal documents of the UNFCCC (https://unfccc.int/process).

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The methodology provides for using annual statistics reports data on the Russian forests. The data includes State Forest Register records; industries’ records of commercial felling volumes; forest areas losses due to disturbances of anthropogenic nature; data of the Federal State Statistic Service (Rosstat) reporting. Counting procedures are based on data on two levels - local (by forest management units) and regional (by the subjects of the Russian Federation). Local level data provided by State Forest Register deal with forest quality and quantity parameters, such as the dominant tree species, age groups, the forest growing stock, forest growing stock increment, etc. Regional level data represent the volume of timber harvested in forests, forest fire losses, forest losses caused by pests aggregated by the regions of the Russian Federation.

The counting algorithms and the sequence of carbon assessment procedures are described in details in the publication (Metodika, 2017). This methodology was tested by processing the data of the State Forest Register and federal statistics of the year 2015, that was chosen in order to allow for results to be compared with those of the latest national GHG inventory which was carried out for the same time period (National inventory report, 2017). In order to avoid misinterpretations of national carbon balance estimates and allow those estimates to be aggregated to the global level, it is important to follow assessment categories and terminology recommended by the IPCC. These assessment categories are forest, managed forest and forest management. Pursuant to Article 3.4 of the Kyoto Protocol, national GHG inventory reports are supposed to use “forest” with its spatial characteristics as assessment category. In Russia’s forestry this category matches the one that is described as a land covered with forest vegetation and the other that is described as forest land that have temporarily lost forest cover but trees to be restored (clear-cuts, burns, etc.). These two subcategories together make up forest lands - the assessment category that is accepted by IPCC methodology (http://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp) and should be used for national greenhouse gas inventory.

The distinctive feature of the developed methodology is that it takes into account carbon stock and carbon absorption for all the categories of lands covered with forests. The assessments entities introduce, besides those of forestry, other land categories covered with forest vegetation, including industry, electric power, transportation, defense and other special use, settlements, specially protected areas. Many of these categories are not included now in national GHG inventory and in the national communication under international climate agreements (National inventory report, 2017).

The assessment of carbon stinks and carbon balance in LULUCF sector is made for “managed forests” according to IPCC guidelines. Managed forests are a terminological category voluntarily adopted for national reporting on international agreements. IPCC glossary defines managed forest as a land where human interventions and practices have been applied to perform production, ecological or social functions (Annex 4. A.1, Guidelines, 2006). Following for IPCC guiding principles, countries should consistently apply national definitions of managed forests.

Forest lands in Russia, following Russian Forest legislation, are partitioned into protective, exploitable, and reserved (so called “inaccessible forests”) sub-categories (Forest Code, 2006). Reserved forest lands represent areas, where no merchantable wood harvesting is planned to take place for the nearest 20 years (Article 109, Forest Code, 2006). These are the remote regions of Siberia and Far East forests. The role these forests play in supporting the biosphere ecological functioning is many times greater than their merchantable timber value. The rationale of adopting “managed forests” as a category for Russia’s national reporting on international climate agreements was substantiated in 2006. At that time only protective and exploitable forest sub-categories were included in the “managed forests” category, and reserved forest sub-category was not (National inventory report, 2006. http://www.ncsf.ru/uploads/userfiles/files/57.pdf), and these forests are still not counted in national GHG inventory. The protective and exploitable forests cover 76.4% and reserved forests - 23.6% of all Russian Forest Fund lands to date. As of 2015, the reserved forests cover approximately 200 million ha and their annual growing stock increment is about 240 million m3/year. In accordance with the modern Forest legislation the reserved forests are protected against fires, pest infestation and diseases, used for non-commercial firewood extraction; these forests are included in regional forest plans; and that’s why could be counted within the managed forests category; and that’s what we accept in our methodology and experimental calculations. We estimate this sub-category of forests, not counted in the national GHG inventory (2017), adsorbs about 120 Mt C/year. Figure 1 shows the reserved forest area that was included in our carbon counting.


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Figure 1. Spatial distribution of reserved forests (“inaccessible” forests)

IPCC methodology strongly insists on implementing ecological zoning or forest zoning on the site-growth (site-specific) conditions for forest stratification in homogeneous sub-categories conducting national GHG inventories (http://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp). Forest zoning on the site-growth (site-specific) conditions allows to take into consideration Russia’s forest productivity as it depends on climate, geology and soil habitat and on proximate sub-arctic or temperate climatic zones. The annual increment of the growing stock (forest productivity) is functionally related to the richness of the site-growth (site-specific) conditions. Growing stock and annual increment of the growing stock for various tree species present initial parameters for carbon stock and carbon net increment count. The biomass expansion factor for the conversion of the growing stock and annual stock growth to the aboveground biomass and parameters for the assessment of carbon stock in belowground biomass, dead organic matter, litter, etc. are applied to strata with the same forest site-growth (site-specific) conditions. The linkage of the biomass conversion and expansion factor also and other conversion ratios to forest stratum makes it possible to estimate carbon stocks in all the pools that recommended by IPCC: living biomass, dead organic matter, litter relevant to Russia’s forests. Forest stratification is needed for estimates because it also significantly reduces the uncertainty of the assessment of GHG emissions and removals at regional and national levels.

Forest stratification by zonal-territorial polygons, entities with homogeneous site-growth conditions, was implemented prior to quantitative estimations. The starting point of forest stratification was the map of site-growth conditions zoning by S.F. Kurnaev (1973). Along with that there are prescriptive documents that regulate forestry in the Russian Federation, which provide for using forest site-growth condition zones and forest regions approved by Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (An order N 569 dated 12/23/2015 and edited 03/21/2016). Strictly speaking, the last one is the case of forestry zoning that partitions forest lands according to management regimes coherent with practices of forest-use, protection and reproduction.

GIS functional capabilities made it feasible to combine these two cartographic sources and to merge the polygon layer of forest site-growth conditions (Malysheva et al., 2017) and polygon layers of forestry zoning with the same management regimes. Standard ArcGIS tools did spatial overlaying and combining the polygons of these two layers. This way with the help of GIS instruments there was formed homogeneous strata for which corresponding biomass conversion and expansion factor and conversion ratios are available to carry out the estimates of biomass, biomass growth and other parameters needed to quantitative assessment of forest carbon stock and net annual increment of forest carbon stock.

A digital database, that we prepared before, with the polygons of Russia’s forest management units (lesnichestvo) (Malysheva et al., 2016) is used in this work to link the spatial data of forest management units with the stratum of


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forest zoning on the site-growth conditions. GIS overlays techniques made it feasible to superposition the polygons of forest management units over the stratum polygons and link the data on forest lands to the stratum, and then, through converting merchantable volume of growing stock to aboveground biomass and merchantable volume of net annual increment to aboveground biomass growth, to count carbon stock and annual net carbon increment for forest lands. Figure 2 presents the combination of stratum layer and forest management unit layer in ArcGIS.

Figure 2. Overlaying the forest stratum with homogeneous site-growth condition and forest management unit layers in ArcGIS

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Reconsidered and extended nomenclature of the inventory objects for LULUCF sector; GIS supported methodology for stratification of the GHG inventory objects; area and growing stock data at the forest management units level coupled with zoning on site-growth conditions; differentiation of conversion ratios by strata - all these helped to calculate forest carbon stock for forest management units, to estimate carbon sink and emission for the regions and finally to carry out carbon balance for Russia’s forests.

Base map of forest land polygons was produced for spatial presentation of calculation results and for data placement in accordance with the inventory object’s outline. The map of forests of the Russian Federation, where forests are differentiated by dominant tree species and density of canopy cover, was transformed to be used in GIS environment for organizing forest land polygons. The initial map was drawn up using the results of interpretation of MODIS satellite images with spatial resolution of 250 m in visible bands of the electromagnetic spectrum and it is geo-referenced and available in raster formats (TIFF and ArcInfo GRID) (http://www.forestforum.ru/gis.php). Raster to vector conversion is implemented with the polygons subdivided into two groups: forest lands and not forest lands. The spatial basis (base map) produced was further used to present visually the numerical estimates of carbon stock for Russia’s forests, carbon net annual increment, annual carbon losses caused by anthropogenic activities, and carbon balance.

The calculating method provides for utilizing a number of quantitative and qualitative parameters. The main characteristics of forest production and ecological potential are: dominant tree species and their groups, forest age structure, forest growing stock and annual increment of growing stock. The thematic maps were compiled, and they revealed: spatial patterns of dominant tree species; age groups of the main timber species groups (coniferous, softwood,


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hardwood); predominant stands age groups; average site-quality class for main timber species groups; prevailing average growing stock of main species groups; average annual growth for main species groups. All the parameters are spatially referenced within the forest land polygons, that represent CO2 inventory counting units of LULUCF sector. The maps were prepared by ArcGIS.

Experimental testing of the developed algorithms together with a revised at a finer level of methodological approach made it possible to carry out the estimates of carbon stocks for forests in general and for separate pools; annual carbon increment for forests in general and for separate pools; carbon annual loss caused by anthropogenic disturbances; and carbon balance of forests as of 01.01.2016. The results were presented in cartographic form at the concluding stage of work. Figure 3 illustrates the assessment of carbon balance (NBP) - net carbon sink for Russia’s forests, which takes into account carbon emissions caused by anthropogenic activities. Visually presented calculations results obtained for annual carbon stock changes (NEP) and overall net carbon sink value (NBP) are similar to the numerical estimates produced by a prestigious team of scientists from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). The values differences fall within the estimation allowable uncertainty (Shvidenko & Shchepashchenko, 2014).

It is also worth to weigh our results against those of the latest national report on GHG inventory for LULUCF sector that was submitted by Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (Roshydromet) and based on the data for the same time (http://www.meteorf.ru/upload/pdf_download/NIR-2017_v1_fin.pdf). The net carbon sink value of managing forests in the national report is estimated on the plus side, at 160.7 Mt C/year (without soils pool). The calculations of net carbon sink value (NBP) that were performed based on our methodology ended up with 521.5 Mt C/year (without soils pool) as of 2015. It is also worth noting that forests as objects of GHG emissions and removals inventory fall into a category of inherently high uncertainty assessment as admitted by the IPCC (http://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/2006gl/pdf/4_Volume4/V4_04_Ch4_Forest_Land.pdf). These uncertainties could be up to 30% for both the above-mentioned methods took that into account National inventory report of the Russian Federation on greenhouse gas emissions and removals, 2006 (http:// www.ncsf.ru/uploads/userfiles/files/57.pdf). The methodology for carbon sequestration capacity assessment of Russian forests developed and presented here is the result of research and has no official status yet. We still arrived at the conclusion that the basic methodology, that was adopted by Roshydromet for national GHG inventory and reports under international climate agreements, underestimated the value of carbon net-sink for the Russian forests at around 360 Mt C/year.

Figure 3. Net carbon absorption in biomass of the Russian forests in the year 2015


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CONCLUSION

Due to GIS instruments, the finer stratification by homogeneous forest site-growing (site-specific) conditions and management regimes for forest lands were performed. The standard functionality of GIS was provided to link the spatial growing stocks and growing stock increments data on forest lands of forest management units with the stratum of forest zoning on the site-growth conditions. With the help of GIS tools there were formed homogeneous strata for which corresponding biomass conversion and expansion factor and conversion ratios were available to carry out the estimates of biomass stocks and other parameters needed to quantitative assessment of carbon stocks and annual increment of carbon stocks in the all forest carbon pools.

The estimations of carbon stocks and net carbon stock changes on forest lands in all carbon pools (i.e., aboveground biomass, below-ground biomass, dead organic matter, litter) was made and presented on the maps. The maps were prepared by ArcGIS.

Forest sub-categories of accounting (counting units) for national GHG emissions and removals inventory on the LULUCF sector were localized and visualized better due to GIS contribution. Proposed methodology was tested by processing the data of the State Forest Register and federal statistics of the year 2015. As a result, carbon stocks; carbon sinks; annual carbon losses through biomass removals and finally the carbon balance of Russia’s forests were estimated and mapped.

It could be concluded in comparing our assessments with those published in the national GHG inventory report on the LULUCF sector (2017) that existing methodology underestimates the carbon sink in Russian forests up to 60-70%. It is also worth noting that forests as objects of GHG emissions and removals inventory fall into a category of inherently high uncertainty assessment. The range of estimates the carbon sink and carbon balance of forests with diverse site-growing conditions in a country the size of Russia would remain high.

Despite the substantial discrepancies between the results of carbon absorption/emission calculations for Russia's forests at various case studies, the general conclusion is that the carbon sink in the forests is currently supported at a high level compared to the baseline for the 1990. Considering the significant contribution of Russia's forests to the planet's carbon balance, studies aimed at evaluating its potential to reduce anthropogenic GHG emissions need to be continued to harmonize methodological approaches and reduce the uncertainty of estimates.

REFERENCES

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Filipchuk, A.N., Moiseev, B.N., Malysheva, N.V. 2017. The methodology of accounting the CO2 absorption in the Russian forests. Materialy 2-oj mezhdunarodnoj nauchno-tekhnicheskoj konferencii «Lesa Rossii: politika, promyshlennost', nauka, obrazovanie» 24-26 maya 2017. Sankt-Peterburg, V.2, 155-158. (in Russian).

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BIOGRAPHY

Nataliya Malysheva graduated from Lomonosov Moscow State University specialized in cartography. PhD in Geography. The present position is leading research scientist at the Department of Analytical Researches of Forests Dynamics at All-Russian Research Institute for Silviculture and Mechanization of Forestry, Federal Forestry Agency, Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation. She is an author more than 120 scientific papers. As Assoc. Professor, Dr. Malysheva gives lectures on remote sensing and GIS for forestry and land cadastre applications at the Russian State Agrarian University/Timiryazev Agricultural Academy in Moscow. Currently, the priority research areas are GIS application for carbon sequestration assessment in the forests, GIS and Web-GIS application for forestry, forest mapping, remote sensing application for forest management and forest monitoring.

Tatiana Zolina graduated from Lomonosov Moscow State University specialized in cartography. The present position is senior research scientist at the Department of Analytical Researches of Forests Dynamics at All-Russian Research Institute for Silviculture and Mechanization of Forestry, Federal Forestry Agency, Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation. Currently, the priority research areas are GIS application for forest management and forest sequestration assessment, Web-GIS application for forestry and forest mapping.


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Andrey Filipchuk graduated from the Moscow Forest Engineering Institute with a degree in forestry. Doctor of Agricultural Sciences specialized in forest inventory and forest management. Priority research areas: strategy and methodology of forest inventory and forest management, assessment of forest resources, conservation and protection of biodiversity, sustainable forest management, international cooperation. He has published about 150 scientific papers. Since 2001, Dr. Filipchuk worked as a Deputy Director for Science of All-Russian Research Institute for Silviculture and Mechanization of Forestry, Federal Forestry Agency, Ministry of Natural Resources. Since 2007 up to 2015, worked as Deputy Chairman/Chairman of the European Forestry Commission FAO UN.

Boris Moiseev graduated from the Moscow Forest Engineering Institute with a degree in forestry. PhD in Agricultural Sciences specialized in forest management and forest inventory. Priority research areas are carbon assessment and reporting, forest inventory, forest management, forest monitoring. Nowadays, he is the leading research scientist in LLC “Lesnoye delo” responsible for scientific and surveying activities. He is a well known specialist in GHG inventory of emissions and removals in forestry.


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