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Tropentag, September 17 - 19, 2013 in Stuttgart-Hohenheim

"Agricultural development within the rural-urban continuum"


Evaluation of Carbon Content in Forests of North-Eastern Mexico

Oscar Alberto Aguirre Calderon, Javier Jimenez Perez, Eduardo Javier TreviƱo Garza, Eduardo Alanis Rodriguez, Gerardo Cuellar Rodriguez, Marco Aurelio Gonzalez Tagle, Israel Yerena Yamallel

Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, School of Forest Sciences, Mexico


Abstract


Our objective is to communicate some initial lessons about the practical challenges of designing and conducting measurements of carbon pools in Mexico. The acknowledgement of the importance of environmental services that forests provide and the need to count on reliable methods to assess them are the reasons to accomplish the actual study, whose objectives were to develop methods and practical tools to estimate the carbon content of some forest types. Better knowledge of carbon stocks and fluxes is needed to understand the current state of the carbon cycle and how it might envolve with changing land uses and climatic conditions. Aboveground tree mass is estimated using allometric equations relating diameter at breast height to total tree mass or component parts of bole wood, branch, and foliage mass. In the present work biomass equations in function of the normal diameter with a form of b=β_1*d^2 for Pinus pseudostrobus, P. teocote and Quercus spp. were developed in temperate forests of North Eastern Mexico. Likewise, the carbon content of the species was determined with an organic carbon analyzer. The results allowed the construction of biomass and carbon content tarif tables and charts, through which contained carbon in tree species of mixed forests pine-oak, oak-pine and pure pine stands was evaluated. The carbon percentage in Pinus pseudostrobus was 50.4, in P. teocote 47.8 and in Quercus spp. 48.4. Carbon content tables for pure pine stands of the two pine species were built for different site indices. The results of the carbon content evaluation in different types of forest were: pine-oak forest 45.2 Mg/ha, oak-pine forest 64.2 Mg/ha, pure pine forest of P. pseudostrobus 73.2 Mg/ha and P. teocote forest 47.0 Mg/ha. Two inventory techniques for the estimation of forest carbon in different forest structures are discussed, and field measurement guidelines for mixed and pure stands are presented.


Keywords: Allometry, biomass, carbon ratio, carbon storage, environmental services


Contact Address: Oscar Alberto Aguirre Calderon, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, School of Forest Sciences, Carretera Nacional km. 145, 67700 Linares, Mexico, e-mail: oscar.aguirrecl@uanl.edu.mx


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