Latvian Council of Science agreement No. lzp-2018/2-0090
Despite the importance of the forest sector in Latvia, the methodological basis for analysing of the amount of forest biomass and sequestrated carbon (C) in Latvia is still incomplete. Currently, one of the biggest drawbacks is the lack of suitable biomass equations for grey alder and common alder trees. So far available methods for converting of the tree attributes to biomass units developed for both alder species are not covering the hemiboreal region where Latvia and other Baltic countries are located or have been designed specifically for calculation of amounts of energy wood. This study is a direct and logical continuation of our recent line of research which aims to improve Latvia’s GHG inventory reporting methodology in LULUCF sector.
Our study aims first to derive missing allometric equations for aboveground biomass components of both alder species based on data sets obtained in Latvia and then to compare the developed biomass equations to similar models produced in the Europe and evaluate their suitability for C calculations. Also, the project partly will be intended to carry out the pilot study of alder’s belowground biomass since alders may require different procedures for extracting and measuring of root systems.