The Evaluation of temporal and spatial change of aboveground stand carbon: A case study of Upstream of the Göksu River Basin

Abstract

In this study, the temporal and spatial amount of aboveground stand carbon was investigated between 1993 to 2015 in the upper watershed of Göksu River located in the Eastern Mediterranean region. For this purpose, the aboveground stand carbon maps were produced by using digital forest stand cover maps for these years with the ArcGIS 10.5TM software program. According to the results, a decrease (0.9%) in forest areas and an increase (11.6%) in productive forest areas were determined in the twenty-two years. It was seen that the total amount of aboveground stand carbon was increased by 47.6 thousand tons. The reason for this is the increase in the total productive forests areas and growing stock per hectares. This research revealed the importance of the increase in growing stock as well as the increase in the area of forests in the carbon management policies.

Keywords

• forest
• carbon
• geographic information systems
• göksu catchment
• coğrafi bilgi sistemleri
• yukarı göksu havzası
• orman
• karbon
• yukarı göksu havzası