General Technical Report Nrs P

Measurement guidelines for forest carbon sequestration were developed to support reporting by public and private entities to greenhouse gas registries. These guidelines are intended to be a reference for designing a forest carbon inventory and monitoring system by professionals with a knowledge of sampling, statistical estimation, and forest measurements. This report provides guidance on defining boundaries; measuring, monitoring, and estimating changes in carbon stocks; implementing plans to measure and monitor carbon; and developing quality assurance and quality control plans to ensure credible and reproducible estimates of the carbon credits.

This study presents techniques for calculating average net annual additions to carbon in forests and in forest products. Forest ecosystem carbon yield tables, representing stand-level merchantable volume and carbon pools as a function of stand age, were developed for 51 forest types within 10 regions of the United States. Separate tables were developed for afforestation and reforestation. Because carbon continues to be sequestered in harvested wood, approaches to calculate carbon sequestered in harvested forest products are included. Although these calculations are simple and inexpensive to use, the uncertainty of results obtained by using representative average values may be high relative to other techniques that use site- or project-specific data. The estimates and methods in this report are consistent with guidelines being updated for the U.S. Voluntary Reporting of Greenhouse Gases Program and with guidelines developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The CD-ROM included with this publication contains a complete set of tables in spreadsheet format.

Close to 80 percent of the U.S. population lives in urban areas and depends on the essential ecological, economic, and social benefits provided by urban trees and forests. However, the distribution of urban tree cover and the benefits of urban forests vary across the United States, as do the challenges of sustaining this important resource. As urban areas expand across the country, the importance of the benefits that urban forests provide, as well as the challenges to their conservation and maintenance, will increase. The purpose of this report is to provide an overview of the current status and benefits of America's urban forests, compare differences in urban forest canopy cover among regions, and discuss challenges facing urban forests and their implications for urban forest management.

The Handbook identifies all aspects of Regulatory Plant Biosecurity and discusses them from the standpoint of preventing the international movement of plant pests, diseases and weeds that negatively impact production agriculture, natural plant-resources and agricultural commerce.