High resolution analysis of tropical forest fragmentation and its impact on the global carbon cycle

Katharina Brinck, Rico Fischer (), Jürgen Groeneveld, Sebastian Lehmann, Mateus Dantas De Paula, Sandro Pütz, Joseph O. Sexton, Danxia Song and Andreas Huth
Additional contact information
Katharina Brinck: Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research GmbH-UFZ Leipzig
Rico Fischer: Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research GmbH-UFZ Leipzig
Jürgen Groeneveld: Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research GmbH-UFZ Leipzig
Sebastian Lehmann: Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research GmbH-UFZ Leipzig
Mateus Dantas De Paula: Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research GmbH-UFZ Leipzig
Sandro Pütz: Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research GmbH-UFZ Leipzig
Joseph O. Sexton: Global Land Cover Facility, University of Maryland
Danxia Song: Global Land Cover Facility, University of Maryland
Andreas Huth: Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research GmbH-UFZ Leipzig

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-6

Abstract: Abstract Deforestation in the tropics is not only responsible for direct carbon emissions but also extends the forest edge wherein trees suffer increased mortality. Here we combine high-resolution (30 m) satellite maps of forest cover with estimates of the edge effect and show that 19% of the remaining area of tropical forests lies within 100 m of a forest edge. The tropics house around 50 million forest fragments and the length of the world’s tropical forest edges sums to nearly 50 million km. Edge effects in tropical forests have caused an additional 10.3 Gt (2.1–14.4 Gt) of carbon emissions, which translates into 0.34 Gt per year and represents 31% of the currently estimated annual carbon releases due to tropical deforestation. Fragmentation substantially augments carbon emissions from tropical forests and must be taken into account when analysing the role of vegetation in the global carbon cycle.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14855 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms14855

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms14855

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().