Above ground forest biomass and carbon status in the Rio Grande de Arecibo watershed

Tropical forest ecosystems, especially young secondary-rapid growing forests, naturally or artificially developed, have great potential for long term carbon sequestration and storage. This ecosystem function helps to reduce the continuous CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. The objective of this investigation is to generate a base line that will serve as basis to estimate above-ground biomass and carbon fluxes of forest lands in the Rio Grande de Arecibo watershed. Biomass and carbon contents in above-ground vegetation were estimated from forest inventory data taken in the summer, 2003 in the Rio Grande de Arecibo watershed (RGA). The data collected also allowed for structural and species composition analyses of the vegetation. A Geographic Information System using land use, geology and ecological life zone maps of the study area, was developed and used as the basis for stratified random sampling of forests lands in the study area. Above-ground biomass was calculated from prediction equations developed for tropical forests as a function of life zones and rock formation types. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...