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Research papers on Deforestation and carbon

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  1. Carbon emissions from land use and land-cover change

    R. A. Houghton, Joanna I. House, Julia Pongratz, et al. · 2012 · Biogeosciences · 1,364 citations

    Abstract. The net flux of carbon from land use and land-cover change (LULCC) is significant in the global carbon budget but uncertain, not only because of uncertainties in rates of deforestation and forestation, but also because of uncertainties in the carbon density of the lands actually undergoing change. Furthermore, there are differences in approaches used to determine the flux that introduce variability into estimates in ways that are difficult to evaluate, and there are forms of management not considered in many of the analyses. Thirteen recent estimates of net carbon emissions from LULCC are summarized here. All analyses consider changes in the area of agricultural lands (croplands an

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  2. Baseline Map of Carbon Emissions from Deforestation in Tropical Regions

    Nancy L. Harris, Sandra Brown, Stephen C. Hagen, et al. · 2012 · Science · 729 citations

    Policies to reduce emissions from deforestation would benefit from clearly derived, spatially explicit, statistically bounded estimates of carbon emissions. Existing efforts derive carbon impacts of land-use change using broad assumptions, unreliable data, or both. We improve on this approach using satellite observations of gross forest cover loss and a map of forest carbon stocks to estimate gross carbon emissions across tropical regions between 2000 and 2005 as 0.81 petagram of carbon per year, with a 90% prediction interval of 0.57 to 1.22 petagrams of carbon per year. This estimate is 25 to 50% of recently published estimates. By systematically matching areas of forest loss with their ca

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  3. Committed carbon emissions, deforestation, and community land conversion from oil palm plantation expansion in West Kalimantan, Indonesia

    Kimberly M. Carlson, Lisa M. Curran, Dessy Ratnasari, et al. · 2012 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 482 citations

    Industrial agricultural plantations are a rapidly increasing yet largely unmeasured source of tropical land cover change. Here, we evaluate impacts of oil palm plantation development on land cover, carbon flux, and agrarian community lands in West Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo. With a spatially explicit land change/carbon bookkeeping model, parameterized using high-resolution satellite time series and informed by socioeconomic surveys, we assess previous and project future plantation expansion under five scenarios. Although fire was the primary proximate cause of 1989-2008 deforestation (93%) and net carbon emissions (69%), by 2007-2008, oil palm directly caused 27% of total and 40% of peatl

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  4. Challenges to estimating carbon emissions from tropical deforestation

    Navin Ramankutty, Holly Gibbs, Frédéric Achard, et al. · 2006 · Global Change Biology · 401 citations

    Abstract An accurate estimate of carbon fluxes associated with tropical deforestation from the last two decades is needed to balance the global carbon budget. Several studies have already estimated carbon emissions from tropical deforestation, but the estimates vary greatly and are difficult to compare due to differences in data sources, assumptions, and methodologies. In this paper, we review the different estimates and datasets, and the various challenges associated with comparing them and with accurately estimating carbon emissions from deforestation. We performed a simulation study over legal Amazonia to illustrate some of these major issues. Our analysis demonstrates the importance of c

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  5. Including Carbon Emissions from Deforestation in the Carbon Footprint of Brazilian Beef

    Christel Cederberg, U. Martin Persson, Kristian Neovius, et al. · 2011 · Environmental Science & Technology · 243 citations

    Effects of land use changes are starting to be included in estimates of life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, so-called carbon footprints (CFs), from food production. Their omission can lead to serious underestimates, particularly for meat. Here we estimate emissions from the conversion of forest to pasture in the Legal Amazon Region (LAR) of Brazil and present a model to distribute the emissions from deforestation over products and time subsequent to the land use change. Expansion of cattle ranching for beef production is a major cause of deforestation in the LAR. The carbon footprint of beef produced on newly deforested land is estimated at more than 700 kg CO(2)-equivalents per kg ca

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  13. Carbon density and anthropogenic land-use influences on net land-use change emissions

    S. J. Smith, A. Rothwell · 2013 · Biogeosciences · 25 citations

    Abstract. We examine historical and future land-use emissions using a simple mechanistic carbon-cycle model with regional and ecosystem specific parameterizations. We use the latest gridded data for historical and future land-use changes, which includes estimates for the impact of forest harvesting and secondary forest regrowth. Our central estimate of net terrestrial land-use change emissions, exclusive of climate–carbon feedbacks, is 250 GtC over the last 300 yr. This estimate is most sensitive to assumptions for preindustrial forest and soil carbon densities. We also find that land-use change emissions estimates are sensitive to the treatment of crop and pasture lands. These sensitivities

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  15. Can Carbon Finance Optimize Land Use Efficiency? The Example of China’s Carbon Emissions Trading Policy

    Bin Duan, Xuanming Ji · 2021 · Land · 15 citations

    Land resources have become one of the major factors limiting urban development in China. In the context of sustainable development, how to improve land use efficiency (LUE) has become a major challenge on the road to sustainable development in China. Carbon finance provides a new idea for sustainable development. With the help of carbon emissions trading policy (CETP), this paper aims to investigate whether carbon finance can optimize LUE in terms of economic effects and environmental effects. Based on the data of 158 prefectural-level cities in China from 2010 to 2017, this paper uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis to investigate these issues. Specifically, this pape

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  16. Influence of carbon mapping and land change modelling on the prediction of carbon emissions from deforestation

    VICTOR HUGO GUTIERREZ-VELEZ, ROBERT GILMORE PONTIUS · 2012 · Environmental Conservation · 10 citations

    SUMMARY: The implementation of an international programme for reducing carbon emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) can help to mitigate climate change and bring numerous benefits to environmental conservation. Information on land change modelling and carbon mapping can contribute to quantify future carbon emissions from deforestation. However limitations in data availability and technical capabilities may constitute an obstacle for countries interested in participating in the REDD programme. This paper evaluates the influence of quantity and allocation of mapped carbon stocks and expected deforestation on the prediction of carbon emissions from deforestation. The paper introdu

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  17. The Role of Government Spending on Deforestation and Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Land Use Change

    Gregmar I. Galinato, Suzette P. Galinato · 2013 · RePEc: Research Papers in Economics · 8 citations

    There has been a shift in fiscal policies in developing countries with good quality institutions. Government spending is less likely to be procyclical and instead countercyclical where spending rises during times of recession and falls during times of expansion to reduce the effects of the business cycle. We show using a theoretical model that moving towards a countercyclical spending pattern yields an unintended consequence: during times of recession there is an increase in deforestation and carbon dioxide emissions from land use change. We empirically test the results from our theoretical model and find that an increase in total government spending significantly increases forest land clear

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  18. Refining land-use-specific carbon emission factors for commodity-driven deforestation monitoring in Colombia

    Camilo Zamora, Robert N. Masolele, Katja Berger, et al. · 2026 · Environmental Research Letters · 2 citations

    Abstract Deforestation remains one of the most significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions globally. Tropical regions are particularly critical to climate mitigation due to their high carbon density and ongoing conversion to agricultural uses. While earth observation (EO) has become fundamental for assessing land-use change over time and space, key gaps persist in understanding associated carbon emissions (CE) and their distribution across production systems, information required by diverse international and European policy frameworks targeting greenhouse gas reduction and deforestation. To address this, the study integrates satellite-derived aboveground biomass (AGB) with machine learni

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  19. Refining land-use-specific carbon emission factors for commodity-driven deforestation monitoring in Colombia

    C. ; https://orcid.org/0009-0002-4587-6711 Zamora Ospina, Christopher Martius, Robert N. Masolele, et al. · 2026 · Publication Database GFZ (GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences)

    Deforestation remains one of the most significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions globally. Tropical regions are especially critical for climate mitigation due to their high carbon density and ongoing conversion to agricultural uses. While Earth Observation (EO) has become fundamental for assessing land-use change over time and space, key gaps persist in understanding associated carbon emissions (CE) and their distribution across production systems, information required by diverse international and European policy frameworks targeting greenhouse gas reduction and deforestation. To address this, the study integrates satellite-derived aboveground biomass with machine learning-based land-us

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  21. Scripts from paper "Past fire use in deforested land limits secondary forest carbon gains in Amazonia with implications for emissions reduction goals"

    Haddad, Isadora, Pontes-Lopes, Aline, Heinrich, Viola, et al. · 2026 · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)

    Document purpose This repository contains R scripts used to develop the article "Past fire use in deforested land limits secondary forest carbon gains in Amazonia with implications for emissions reduction goals", submitted to Carbon Balance and Management. It includes complete workflows for data processing, statistical modelling, and figure generation, enabling full computational reproducibility. The release of this material complies with the Data Management Plan of FAPESP (grant nº 16581-1/2022). Author correspondence: Isadora HaddadE-mail: isadora.ruiz@inpe.br For more information, contact us. Data sources and versions Table 1. Data souces used in the research development Dataset Version T

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  23. Carbon emissions and removals from land-use and land-cover change in the Djoum, Mintom, Ngoyla, and Yokadouma forest block, Cameroon (Congo Basin)

    Pascal Freddy Bikono*, Zachée Ambang · 2026 · Journal of Biodiversity and Environmental Sciences (JBES)

    Land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) is a major driver of greenhouse gas emissions in tropical regions and plays a critical role in the global carbon cycle. In the Congo Basin, however, LULCC-associated carbon dynamics remain poorly quantified at local scales, particularly in Cameroon. This study quantified carbon emissions, removals, and the net REDD+ balance associated with land-use changes in the intercommunal forest massif of Djoum, Mintom, Ngoyla, and Yokadouma between 2000 and 2024. Carbon fluxes were estimated from land-use transition data, distinguishing emissions driven by forest conversion from removals linked to forest retention and regeneration. The results indicated that no em

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