Tez özetleri Astronomi ve Uzay Bilimleri Anabilim Dalı 2

Biomass Carbon Stock of Turkish Forests: Comparison of Different Calculation Methods
Every year, Turkey submits the report on national inventory of greenhouse gases to the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). According to estimations in this inventory, 16,85 million tons net carbon has recently been accumulated in living biomass in the Turkey forests till 2011. However, some errors exist in the inventory in regards on the Guideline of Land Use, Land Use Change Forestry (LULUCF) which has prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). For example, the values of the volume weights (t/m3), which is used to convert stem wood volume to stem wood weight, are incorrect. Similarly, BEF coefficients used to extend of stem wood weight to the above ground weight, have been calculated based on few number of biomass data. Since the stands at “a development stage” in forest management plans is defined as young stands, stands more than 20 years old within the diameter class of “a development stage” were not included in the calculations. Besides, the estimation of carbon storage in the protected areas was not included in these calculations. However, based on LULUCF, the area of protected forests which is included in forest management classes should be calculated on the amount of carbon accumulation. The major error to estimate the amount of accumulated carbon in the Turkey forests is made to calculate the amount of the removed carbon via harvesting, fires, etc. This error is resulting from LULUCF method to calculate the amount of carbon with removed trees. On the other hand, this has been corrected in AFOLU (Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use) guideline.

In this study, annual carbon accumulation and carbon stocks in Turkey forests were investigated between the years of 2002 and 2012. These calculations were made according to the AFOLU guideline published by the IPCC in 2006 by using the country-specific biomass coefficients., The carbon stock in Turkey forests was 511.34 million tons in 2002, 598.42 million tons in 2012 based on the coefficients according to the tree species defined in the guideline of AFOLU. On the other hand, 511.34 million tons in 2002 and 598.42 million tons in 2012 according to species specific coefficients, however, 511.79 million tons in 2002 and 601.94 million tons in 2012 based on generalized coefficients for conifer and deciduous tree species. Two different methods as stock difference and gain - loss difference were used to calculate of carbon accumulations in living plant biomass of Turkey forests. Annual carbon accumulation was 8.7 million ton/year based on the stock difference method by the tree species in the AFOLU guideline, while, was 9.02 million ton/year with generalized coefficients. The annual carbon accumulation by gain – loss difference method was estimated with only generalized coefficients and AFOLU guidelines. Although the gross sequestered carbon in living tree biomass was 17.81 million tons/year in 2012, 8.20 million tons/year with industrial cuttings, 0.73 million tons/year with illegal cuttings, 0.41 million tons/year with fuelwood removals, 0.23 million tons/year with forest fires and total 9.57 million tons carbon were removed from forest and total net 8.24 million tons carbon were accumulated in Turkey forests. The mean value for the years 2002-2012 was 8.04 million tons/year, and this value was about 1 million tons lower than the value estimated by gain-loss difference method. This can be resulted from uncompleted estimations on illegal cuttings collected materials from forests. It was also stated by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) that the annual net carbon accumulation of the productive forests of Turkey was 8 million tons between the years of 2000 and 2010. Accumulated carbon was 13.62 million tons/year for the period between 2002 and 2012 according to national greenhouse gases inventories of Turkey which were prepared based on LULUCF methodology. This value is very higher than annual carbon accumulations estimated with AFOLU methodology and updated coefficients. For this reason, accumulated carbon in living biomass should be recalculated in Turkey forests.