Analysis of Carbon Storage and Its Contributing Factors—A Case Study in the Loess Plateau (China)

Gaohuan Liu and Zhonghe Zhao
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Gaohuan Liu: State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Zhonghe Zhao: State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China

Energies, 2018, vol. 11, issue 6, 1-18

Abstract: The Chinese Loess Plateau is an ecologically fragile and sensitive area. The carbon storage dynamics in this region and the contributions from land use/land cover change (LUCC) and carbon density from 2000 to 2010 were analyzed in this paper. Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), biomass and soil carbon data in 2000 were used for regression analysis of biomass and soil carbon, and an inversion analysis was used to estimate biomass and soil carbon in 2005 and 2010. Quadrat data, including aboveground biomass and soil organic carbon, were used to calibrate the model output. Carbon storage and sequestration were calculated by the InVEST toolset with four carbon pools, including aboveground biomass, belowground biomass, dead wood and soil carbon. The results showed that carbon storage increased steadily from 2000 to 2010, increasing by 0.260 billion tons, and that woodland area increased and arable land decreased; the overall trend in land cover improved, but the improvement was not pronounced. Carbon storage in the Loess Plateau was correlated with geographical factors. We found that when assuming a constant carbon density, carbon storage decreased, accounting for −1% of the carbon storage dynamics. When assuming no land conversion, carbon storage increased, accounting for 101% of the carbon storage dynamics.

Keywords: carbon storage; the Loess Plateau; InVEST; carbon density; normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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