AN ASSESSMENT OF PRESENT AND FUTURE LAND COVER CHANGES ON CARBON STOCK USING InVEST MODEL IN KPK PROVINCE, PAKISTAN.

Abstract

Forests play an important role in climate change as they act as a sink and source of carbon emissions. Forests sequester Carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and store this carbon in the form of biomass in the forest’s ecosystem. KPK being the most forested province of Pakistan has a high potential for carbon sequestration. Quantitative analysis is necessary for KPK forests to understand carbon sequestration and its economic value. Therefore, this study estimated the forest cover and assessed its carbon stock and sequestration in three different periods (2007, 2017, and 2027). InVEST model and TerrSet based on spatial dataset were used for the analyses. The results showed that the total carbon stock in the KPK forests was estimated to be 141.4 million Tg in 2007, which increased to 157 million Tg due to afforestation projects started in 2014. Compared with the predicted land use cover of the year 2027 with the year 2017, the carbon stock decreased to 109.7 million Tg due to land cover changes most likely due to deforestation for agricultural purposes. The study showed that the economic value of carbon gain from the year 2007-2017 was $1.4 million, while for the future years 2017-2027 economical value was predicted to a be loss $4.3 million. This work provides a comparison of past, present, and future carbon stock and economic value for carbon sequestration which will give a baseline reference for related studies in Pakistan.