Louis Verchot

ABSTRACT The unusual severity and return time of the 2005 and 2010 dry-season droughts in western Amazon is attributed partly to decadal climate fluctuations and a modest drying trend. Decadal variability of western Amazon hydroclimate is highly correlated to the Atlantic sea surface temperature (SST) north–south gradient (NSG). Shifts of dry and wet events frequencies are also related to the NSG phase, with a 66% chance of 3+ years of dry events per decade when NSG>0 and 19% when NSG<0. The western Amazon and NSG decadal co-variability is well reproduced in General Circulation Models (GCMs) historical (HIST) and pre-industrial control (PIC) experiments of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase-5 (CMIP5). The HIST and PIC also reproduce the shifts in dry and wet events probabilities, indicating potential for decadal predictability based on GCMs. Persistence of the current NSG positive phase favors above normal frequency of western Amazon dry events in coming decades.

... Life cycle assessment (LCA) is the appropriate tool to perform both investigations. LCA producesgeneric and non-site specific results in relation to the environmental impacts (energy balance ... The life cycle impacts caused by alternative production scenarios are easily compared ...

ABSTRACT Leakage from policies to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) must be monitored, measured and mitigated to ensure their effectiveness. This paper reviews research on leakage at the large (international and national) and small (subnational and project) scales to summarize what we already know, and highlight areas where research is urgently needed. Most (11 of 15) studies published until 2005 estimated leakage of fossil-fuel-based emissions from large-scale interventions such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Kyoto Protocol. Many studies on leakage from landuse-based emissions more relevant for REDD+ emerged afterwards (11 of 15), mostly focusing on smaller-scale interventions (8 of the 11 studies). There is a deficiency in qualitative studies showing how leakage develops from an intervention, and the factors influencing this process. In–depth empirical research is needed to understand activities and actors causing emissions (Emissions), the way those activities move spatially in response to policies (Displacement), the way policies affect carbon (C) emitting activities (Attribution) and the amount of resulting emissions produced (Quantification). The cart is thence before the horse: the knowledge necessary to form practical and accurate working definitions, typologies and characterizations of leakage is still absent. Despite this, there is a rush to measure, monitor and mitigate leakage. The concept of leakage has not matured enough, leading to vague definitions of leakage, its components, and scale. We suggest ways to improve the concept of leakage and argue for more empirical research and at various scales to add to our collective knowledge of Emissions, Displacement, Attribution and Quantification.

... LC Local community ... Research could support more efficient and effective investments in nationalREDD-plus schemes by elucidating the key drivers of ... rights (including rights to carbon and ecosystem services) is one area that receives much attention in REDD-and LULUCF2 ...

... systems Louis V. Verchot1*, Jens Mackensen2, Serigne Kandji1, Meine van Noordwijk3, Tom Tomich1, Chin Ong1, Alain Albrecht4, Cynthia Bantilan5, KV ... Kropff, MJ, PS Teng, PK Aggarwal, B. Bouman, J. Bouma, HH van Laar (1996) Applications of Systems Approaches at the ...

Monitoring of forest cover and forest functions provides information necessary to support policies and decisions to conserve, protect and sustainably manage forests. Especially in the tropics where forests are declining at a rapid rate, national forest monitoring systems capable of reliably estimating forest cover, forest cover change and carbon stock change are of vital importance. As a large number of tropical countries had limited capacity in the past to implement such a system, capacity building efforts are now ongoing to strengthen the technical and political skillsets necessary to implement national forest monitoring at institutional levels. This paper assesses the current status and recent changes in national forest monitoring and reporting capacities in 99 tropical countries, using the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) 2015 data, complemented with FRA 2010 and FRA 2005 data. Three indicators “Forest area change monitoring and remote sensing capacities”, “Forest inventory capacities” and “Carbon pool reporting capacities” were used to assess the countries’ capacities for the years 2005, 2010 and 2015 and the change in capacities between 2005–2010 and 2010–2015. Forest area change monitoring and remote sensing capacities improved considerably between 2005 and 2015. The total tropical forest area that is monitored with good to very good forest area change monitoring and remote sensing capacities increased from 69% in 2005 to 83% in 2015. This corresponds to 1435 million ha in 2005 and 1699 million ha in 2015. This effect is related to more free and open remote sensing data and availability of techniques to improve forest area change monitoring. The total tropical forest area that is monitored with good to very good forest inventory capacities increased from 38% in 2005 to 66% in 2015. This corresponds to 785 million ha in 2005 and 1350 million ha in 2015. Carbon pool reporting capacities did not show as much improvement and the majority of countries still report at Tier 1 level. This indicates the need for greater emphasis on producing accurate emission factors at Tier 2 or Tier 3 level and improved greenhouse gases reporting. It is further shown that there was a positive adjustment in the net change in forest area where countries with lower capacities in the past had the tendency to overestimate the area of forest loss. The results emphasized the effectiveness of capacity building programmes (such as those by FAO and REDD+ readiness) but also the need for continued capacity development efforts. It is important for countries to maintain their forest monitoring system and update their inventories on a regular basis. This will further improve accuracy and reliability of data and information on forest resources and will provide countries with the necessary input to refine policies and decisions and to further improve forest management.

http://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/WPapers/WP110Comeau.pdf Tropical peatlands are among the largest pedologic pools of organic carbon. This study compared soil CO2 fluxes in an intact peat swamp forest, a transitional logged drained forest and an oil palm plantation located on the same alluvial peat plain (peat dome) in Jambi, Sumatra, Indonesia. Dynamic closed chambers were used to measure soil CO2 efflux from January to September 2012. Chambers were placed in pairs, with one close to a tree/palm and the other at mid-distance to the next tree/palm. In the oil palm plantation additional chambers were placed in frond decomposing lines and tertiary drainage canals. During the experiment, air and soil temperatures, water table level and rainfall were recorded. The fluxes were significantly larger in the oil palm plantation (28.4 ± 1.2 Mg C-CO2 ha–1 y–1) than in the transitional logged drained forest (18.5 ± 0.7 Mg C-CO2 ha–1 y–1) and in the intact peat swamp forest (16.0 ± 1.2...

ABSTRACT Grazers have marked effects on decomposition and N cycling processes, generally resulting in increased net N mineralization. Within landscapes, topographic and edaphic gradients also affect these microbial processes. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of grazers on N cycling processes in a landscape context that encompassed a wide range of environmental conditions in order to increase our mechanistic understanding of these processes and provide a stronger basis for management and assessment of grassland ecosystems. This study was conducted on a series of 37–41-year-old grazing exclosures on the northern winter range of Yellowstone National Park. We measured gross and net mineralization, nitrification and immobilization in grazed and ungrazed plots in upland and bottomland landscape positions by 15N pool dilution in a laboratory incubation with intact cores. There were no significant differences in either gross mineralization, immobilization, gross nitrification or NO3− immobilization between grazed and ungrazed plots in a paired t-test using all plots (P=0.52, P=0.32, P=0.91 and P=0.93, respectively). These results were unexpected, because previous reports indicated that grazers increased soil N dynamics, including net N mineralization, in Yellowstone grassland, and suggest that herbivore regulation of N processes may accumulate over a longer time scale than was measured in this study (24 h). Instead, we found that landscape position was the dominant factor controlling both mineralization and immobilization rates, with higher rates located at the bottoms of the slopes (32.9 and 33.4 μg N g soil−1 d−1, respectively), compared to the upland sites (4.4 and 3.2 μg N g soil−1 d−1, respectively). Gross mineralization and immobilization rates were highly correlated with soil C and N content, while gross nitrification was not. Turn over times for NH4+ and NO3− pools averaged 1.2 days for the NH4+ pool and 2.25 days for the NO3− pool. There was no apparent effect of grazers on turnover times, nor were there any significant correlations between turnover times and soil C and N pools, slope position, or soil water content. Previous modeling to understand how herbivores affect N cycling suggested that stimulation of net mineralization was most likely due to grazers suppressing immobilization by reducing belowground primary productivity and organic matter inputs to the soil. Our results do not suggest that grazers suppress immobilization. If anything, they suggest that grazers enhance this process, especially in the more mesic components of the landscape. Landscape position effects on N cycle processes were much stronger than grazer effects in this study, and appear to be driven by soil C and N contents.

... Louis V. Verchot, Institute of Ecosystem Studies, PO Box AB, Mill-brook, NY 12545; E. Carlyle Franklin, Woodlot Forestry and Develop-ment Program ... Surface runoff drained from the fields through a grass-vegetated field border and was collected by a berm at the lower end of ...