Forests and the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory of Germany
Abstract
Since 1995, experiences have been gathered with the calculation of National Greenhouse Gas Inventories in Germany. Because only marginal changes of the total forested area occur in Germany, relevant changes of the balance of greenhouse gases in the forest sector are related to forest management. It was found that the increment of wood by far exceeds the harvested timber volume. Therefore, forests in Germany currently represent a significant sink for carbon (8–9 Mt C.y-1). In the context of the Kyoto Protocol, area afforested, reforested and deforested (ARD under IPCC definitions) is small. In contrast to the high quality of data from national forest inventories, reporting of ARD areas involves high error due to lacks and inconsistencies in national land-use statistics.