Carbon loss from forest degradation exceeds that from deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon
Abstract
Spatial–temporal dynamics of aboveground biomass (AGB) and forest area affect the carbon cycle, climate and biodiversity in the Brazilian Amazon. Here we investigate interannual changes in AGB and forest area by analysing satellite-based annual AGB and forest area datasets. We found that the gross forest area loss was larger in 2019 than in 2015, possibly due to recent loosening of forest protection policies. However, the net AGB loss was three times smaller in 2019 than in 2015. During 2010–2019, the Brazilian Amazon had a cumulative gross loss of 4.45 Pg C against a gross gain of 3.78 Pg C, resulting in a net AGB loss of 0.67 Pg C. Forest degradation (73%) contributed three times more to the gross AGB loss than deforestation (27%), given that the areal extent of degradation exceeds that of deforestation. This indicates that forest degradation has become the largest process driving carbon loss and should become a higher policy priority.
Additional Information
© 2021 Springer Nature Limited. Received 06 April 2020. Accepted 12 March 2021. Published 29 April 2021. We thank P. Friedlingstein, N. Vuichard, D. Zhu, M. Kautz and B. Poulter for their comments and discussion regarding the early version of this manuscript. Y.Q. and X.X. were supported by the NASA Land Use and Land Cover Change programme (grant no. NNX14AD78G); the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) (grant no. CRN3076), which is supported by the US National Science Foundation (grant no. GEO-1128040); and the NSF EPSCoR project (grant no. IIA-1301789). Y.Q., X.X., S.C., X.W., R.D. and B.M. were supported by NASA's GeoCarb Mission (GeoCarb Contract no. 80LARC17C0001). J.-P.W. was supported by the SMOS project of the TOSCA Programme from CNES, France (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales). P.C. and S.S. were supported by the RECCAP2 project, which is part of the ESA Climate Change Initiative (contract no. 4000123002/18/I-NB) and the H2020 European Institute of Innovation and Technology (4C; grant no. 821003). S.S. was supported by the Newton Fund through the Met Office Climate Science for Service Partnership Brazil (CSSP Brazil). M.B. was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 947757 TOFDRY) and a DFF Sapere Aude grant (no. 9064–00049B). L.F. was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos 41801247 and 41830648) and the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (grant no. BK20180806). X.L. was supported by the China Scholarship Council (grant no. 201804910838). F.L. was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant no. XDA20010202). Data availability. The annual evergreen forest maps67 and AGB maps68 are freely available in GeoTIFF format at Figshare. The GFW product is available at http://earthenginepartners.appspot.com/science-2013-global-forest. The PRODES forest product is available at http://www.obt.inpe.br/OBT/assuntos/programas/amazonia/prodes. The MOD14A2, MOD16A2 and MCD64A1 products are available at https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/data/. The TRMM product is available at https://pmm.nasa.gov/data-access/downloads/trmm. The PAR product is from the NCEP/DOE 2 Reanalysis data provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA, from their website at https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/. Code availability. The code for the evergreen forest mapping and spatial correlation analysis are freely available at Figshare69. The other data processing and analyses were done mainly in ArcMap (https://desktop.arcgis.com/en/arcmap/). Author Contributions. X.X. and Y.Q. designed the overall study plan. Y.Q. and X.X. prepared the annual evergreen forest maps. J.-P.W., M.B., L.F. and X.L. prepared the annual L-VOD AGB dataset. S.C. prepared the OCO-2 XCO2 dataset. Y.Q., X.X., X.W., R.D., Y.Z. and F.L. carried out the data processing and analysis. X.X., Y.Q., J.-P.W., P.C., M.B., S.S. and L.F. interpreted the results. Y.Q. and X.X. drafted the manuscript, and all authors contributed to the writing and revision of the manuscript. The authors declare no competing interests. Peer review information. Nature Climate Change thanks Luiz Aragão, Paulo Brando and Fernando Espírito-Santo for their contribution to the peer review of this work.Attached Files
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 109276
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20210527-093457171
- NNX14AD78G
- NASA
- CRN3076
- Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research
- ICER-1128040
- NSF
- OIA-1301789
- NSF
- 80LARC17C0001
- NASA
- Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES)
- 4000123002/18/I-NB
- European Space Agency (ESA)
- 821003
- European Research Council (ERC)
- Met Office Climate Science for Service Partnership (CSSP)
- 947757
- European Research Council (ERC)
- 9064-00049
- Independent Research Fund Denmark
- 41801247
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- 41830648
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- BK20180806
- Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province
- 201804910838
- China Scholarship Council
- XDA20010202
- Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Created
-
2021-05-27Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-16Created from EPrint's last_modified field