Carbon stock in Japanese forests has been greatly underestimated.

ABSTRACT: An accurate estimate of total forest carbon (C) stock and C uptake is crucial for predicting global warming scenarios and planning CO₂ emission reductions. Forest inventory, based on field measurements of individual tree sizes, is considered the most accurate estimation method for forest C stock. Japan's national forest inventory (NFI) provides stand-scale stem volume for the entire forested area based on (1) direct field measurements (m-NFI) and (2) prediction using yield tables (p-NFI). Here, we show that Japanese national and local forestry agencies and some research studies have used p-NFI and greatly underestimated the Japanese forest C stock (58-64%) and net annual C uptake (41-48%). This was because approximately 10% of the forest area was not counted in p-NFI and because

SUBMITTER: Egusa T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7217934 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature