The study, published in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment, used 3D laser scanning to measure more than 8 million trees in 500 square kilometres of miombo forest in the Gile National Park region.
The findings suggest that these forests store 1.5 to 2.2 times more carbon than traditional methods would estimate. This discrepancy is explained by the fact that traditional methods underestimate the biomass of large trees in particular. Extrapolating these results suggests that all of Africa’s miombo forests could potentially store an additional 13.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in their aboveground biomass, which could significantly impact global carbon estimates.
The study highlights the critical role of Miombo forests in mitigating climate change and points to “an urgent need to intensify conservation efforts.”
Source: Ferra
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