Methodological options for quantifying changes in carbon pools in Swedish forests

This report presents and discusses different methodological options for Sweden's reporting of emissions and removals of carbon dioxide by forests, under the United Nations' framework convention of climate change and its Kyoto Protocol. The main emphasis is on methods for estimating changes in different carbon pools. i.e. aboveground biomass, belowground biomass, dead wood, litter, and soil organic carbon. The report does not treat the issue of estimating areas of land-use transfers, such as afforestation, reforestation and deforestation. The main methodological options considered in the report are repeated measurements in ground-based inventories, eddy-covariance measurements, remote sensing, modelling, and methods combining different data sources. The feasibility of using different methods is discussed, as well as the likely size of errors in applications. It is concluded that the existing field-based national inventory of forests forms a good basis for covering most of the reporting requirements. Remote sensing has a potential for further improving the precision of the estimates, although this method must be applied with care. Eddy-covariance measurements constitute an excellent basis for furthering the understanding of processes as well as for calibrating models. However, this method alone cannot be applied in fulfilment of the reporting requirements