2025/04/10 by Bowen Wang, Ying Lin, Ping Liu +1 · 1 voice
Engineering · Environmental Science · #Forest Biomass Utilization and Management #Forest Management and Policy #Forest ecology and management
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/forestry/cpaf023
openalex publication_date 2025/04/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/15
Abstract Forest carbon analysis can be conducted for purpose of accounting or assessment, using a direct inventory-based or an indirect inventory-linked approach and at highly aggregate international and national or disaggregated subnational and local levels. The goal of this paper is to carefully review and critically synthesize the relevant studies of forest carbon accounting and assessment by examining the strengths and weaknesses, as well as the basic formulation and functionality, of the alternative approaches, and to suggest the directions of future inquiry. Empirical cases are used to illustrate how the different approaches have been applied and what insights they have generated. Pursuing these important research tasks now is imperative to advance the national and international agendas of climate change mitigation and adaptation and, thus, long-term sustainable development. This type of work is also instrumental to the fulfillment of carbon neutrality commitments made by businesses and other organizations. Based on an extensive search, selection, and synthesis of the literature, it is found that while highly aggregate, market-based modeling efforts remain essential, more direct inventory-based accounting and assessment at different levels of jurisdiction are called for to aid the implementation of forest sector climate solutions. To that end, however, forest carbon analysts must strive to update their models with the most recent statistics or strategy and validate their accounting or assessment outcomes by evaluating model performance independently and, if possible, as part of a larger model comparison effort.