Abstract
Tropical forests have an important role in the global carbon (C) cycle because of their existing large areal extent, high rates of deforestation, large C pool in vegetation and soil, and high rates of C emissions resulting from conversion to other uses (equivalent to between 22 and 37% of current fossil fuel C emissions) (Table 11.1). Tropical forests currently account for about 43% of the global forest area (Dixon et al. 1994), most of which is in tropical America (52%), followed by tropical Africa (30%) and tropical Asia (18%). They occur mostly as lowland formations where 88% are at an elevation of 1000 m or less. Within the lowlands, 47% are in the rain forest ecological zone, 38% in the moist deciduous zone, and 15% in the dry to very dry zone (Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 1993).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Botkin DB, Simpson LG (1990) Biomass of the North American boreal forest: a step toward accurate global measurements. Bio geochemistry 9: 161–170.
Brown S, Iverson LR (1992) Biomass estimates for tropical forests. World Resource Review 4: 366–384.
Brown S, Lugo AE (1982) The storage and production of organic matter in tropical forests and their role in the global carbon cycle. Biotropica 14: 161–187.
Brown S, Lugo AE (1990) Tropical secondary forests. Journal of Tropical Ecology 6: 1–32.
Brown S, Lugo AE (1992) Aboveground biomass estimates for tropical forests of the Brazilian Amazon. Interciencia 17: 8–18.
Brown S, Gillespie AJR, Lugo AE (1989) Biomass estimation methods for tropical forests with application to forest inventory data. Forest Science 35: 881–902.
Brown S, Gillespie AJR, Lugo AE (1991) Biomass of tropical forests of south and southeast Asia. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 21: 111–117.
Brown S, Iverson LR, Prasad A, Liu D (1993) Geographical distributions of carbon in biomass and soils of tropical Asian forests. Geocarto International 4: 45–59.
Brown S, Iverson LR, Lugo AE (1994) Land-use and biomass changes of forests in Peninsular Malaysia from 1972 to 1982: a GIS approach. In: Dale VH (ed) Effects of land-use change on atmospheric CO2 concentrations: south and southeast Asia as a case study. Springer-Verlag, New York, pp 117–144.
Callister DJ (1992) Illegal tropical timber trade: Asia-Pacific. TRAFFIC International, Cambridge, UK, 83 pp.
Dixon RK, Brown S, Houghton RA, Solomon AM, Trexler MC, Wisniewski J (1994) Carbon pools and flux of global forest ecosystems. Science 263: 185–190.
Flint ER, Richards JF (1994) Trends in carbon content of vegetation in south and southeast Asia associated with changes in land-use. In: Dale VH (ed) Effects of land-use change on atmospheric CO2 concentrations: south and southeast Asia as a case study. Springer-Verlag, New York, pp 201–300.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (1993) Forest resource assessment 1990: tropical countries. FAO Forestry Paper 112, Rome, 102 pp.
Gillespie AJR, Brown S, Lugo AE (1992) Tropical forest biomass estimation from truncated stand tables. Forest Ecology and Management 48: 69–87.
Houghton RA, Hackler JL (1994) The net flux of carbon from deforestation and degradation in south and southeast Asia. In: Dale VH (ed) Effects of land-use change on atmospheric CO2 concentrations: south and southeast Asia as a case study. Springer-Verlag, New York, pp 301–328.
Iverson LR, Brown S, Prasad A, Mitasova H, Gillespie AJR, Lugo AE (1994) Use of GIS for estimating potential and actual forest biomass for continental south and southeast Asia. In: Dale VH (ed) Effects of land-use change on atmospheric CO2 concentrations: south and southeast Asia as a case study. Springer-Verlag, New York, pp 67–116.
McCune B, Menges ES (1986) Quality of historical data on midwestern old-growth forests. The American Midland Naturalist 116: 163–172.
Olson JS, Watts JA, Allison LJ (1983) Carbon in live vegetation of major world ecosystems. DOE/NBB-0037 National Technical Information Service, Springfield, VA, 152 pp.
Ravindranath NH, Somashekhar BS, Gadgil M (1992) Carbon flows in Indian forests. In: Makundi W, Sathaye J (eds) Carbon emissions and sequestration in forests: case studies from seven developing countries Vol. 3: India and China, LBL-32759 UC-402, Energy and Environment Division, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, pp 1–30.
Richards JF, Flint ER (1994) A century of land-use change in south and southeast Asia. In VH Dale (ed) Effects of land-use change on atmospheric CO2 concentrations: south and southeast Asia as a case study. Springer-Verlag, New York, pp 15–66.
Schroeder P, Winjum JK (1995) Balancing Brazil’s carbon budget: the potential importance of secondary forests. Interciencia (In press).
Simpson LG, Botkin DB, Nisbet RA (1993) The potential aboveground carbon storage of North American forests. Water, Air and Soil Pollution 70: 197–208.
Skole D, Tucker C (1993) Tropical deforestation and habitat fragmentation in the Amazon: satellite data from 1978 to 1988. Science 260: 1095–1910.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1996 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Brown, S. (1996). Tropical forests and the global carbon cycle: estimating state and change in biomass density. In: Apps, M.J., Price, D.T. (eds) Forest Ecosystems, Forest Management and the Global Carbon Cycle. NATO ASI Series, vol 40. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-61111-7_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-61111-7_13
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-64699-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-61111-7
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive