Climate Change and Carbon Assessment for the Benefit of Community Forest in Central and Southeast Asia

Refresher Course Nepal

The greenhouse gases effects and the carbon cycle, in particular carbon emissions and carbon sequestration, are at the heart of climate change, one of the most pressing problems the Earth is facing. Global instruments like the UNFCCC, Kyoto Protocol, CDM, and IPCC reports all address these, resulting in an explicit link with the International Environmental Agenda. The accurate quantification of the various components in the carbon cycle forms a core need for its assessment, monitoring, modelling, and the mitigation of adverse climate effects and, in the end, sustainability of livelihoods in many parts of the earth. The latter requires identification, analysis and development of policy instruments in order to handle the impacts of the foreseeable changes in the carbon cycle.

Within the carbon cycle, forestry in the broad sense forms the principal scientific area for research including both emissions (sources) and sequestration (sinks). Afforestation, reforestation and deforestation are the current Kyoto focal areas, but sustainable forest management, including certification, and the assessment and prevention of forest degradation may well be considered in the so-called post-Kyoto period of REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries). Due to size, inaccessibility of the forest resources, and international requirements for a uniform methodology, quantification of the carbon cycle components in both space and time leans heavily on remote sensing, GIS modelling and related statistical tools.

Target group

The participants of the refresher course will be NFP funded alumni, especially alumni that participated in ITC’s Natural Resources Management , Disaster Management and Earth Sciences programmes are expected to participate. Furthermore, university and research institutes related to the subject and others with interest in the use of remote sensing and GIS in assessing carbon sequestration and emission and their impact on climate change are expected to participate.

What will be achieved?

The overall objective of the course is to assess the effect of climate change on natural resources and contribute to accurate estimation of sequestrated and emitted carbon using remote sensing and GIS.

Upon completion of the refresher course participants will be able to:

- describe how climate change is affecting the natural resources
- explain carbon cycle and its effect on climate change
- detect, monitor and model deforestation and forest degradation 
- model biomass and consequently estimate and map sequestrated carbon
- model forest fire behaviour and consequently estimate and map carbon emission
- understand how deforestation, forest degradation, carbon sequestration and carbon emission affected climate change
- interpret and analyse aircraft and high resolution satellite radar and optical scanning images
- use radar and optical scanning (multispectral scanner MSS) images for estimating and mapping biomass and consequently carbon.

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