Carbon storage potential of short rotation tropical tree plantations

Abstract

Forests are a major sink for carbon and play an important role in the global carbon cycle. Not only do forests contain huge amounts of carbon, they exchange it very actively with the atmosphere. Expanding the world's forests, therefore, may present an opportunity to increase the terrestrial carbon sink, and slow the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration. The tropical zones of the world seem particularly attractive for forestation because of the high rates of productivity that can potentially be attained there, and because there appear to be large areas of land that would benefit from tree planting. The analysis described here examines the carbon storage potential of short rotation tropical tree plantations in particular. Mean long-term carbon storage over multiple rotations was calculated for several commonly grown species. Rotation length, and hence the potential to accumulate biomass, is shown to be a key factor in the ability of plantations to remove carbon from the atmosphere over the long-term. © 1992.