Jährliche CO2-Flüsse im Wald: Berechnungsmethode für das Treibhausgasinventar | Annual CO2 fluxes in forests: calculation method for the Greenhouse Gas Inventory

Forests can be carbon sinks as well as carbon sources. In the Kyoto Protocol, forests play a special role. According to Art. 3.4 of the Kyoto Protocol, Switzerland has decided to account for forest management. Since 1990, each participating country must submit the Greenhouse Gas Inventory (GHGI) to the climate convention. These inventories build the basis for the annual estimation of carbon sink and sources under the Kyoto Protocol. This article describes the calculation method of the forest carbon budget in the Swiss GHGI, which is obtained by utilizing the database of the Swiss National Forest Inventory (NFI 1 and 2). Annual CO2-budgets are derived from using the annual wood production, annual climate values, and a climate-sensitive growth model. The large spatial and temporal resolutions of the emission data and factors optimally represent the spatial heterogeneity in Switzerland. The main gaps are in estimating carbon fluxes in dead wood and soil. Moreover, the effect of the annual climate variation on average growth should be investigated in more detail. Once the NFI3 data are available, CO2-budgets will need to be recalculated going as far back as 1995.