Methodology for assessing carbon stock for REDD+ project in India
The objective of this paper is to examine the methodological issues such as scale, baseline reference, measuring, monitoring, and verifications of the REDD+ project in context to India. Remote sensing and GIS based methodology will help in estimating carbon stock of the benchmark year as well as for future temporal estimation at periodic intervals. The output generated would help in understanding the impact of on-going management practices, suggesting improved practices, and supporting decision-making processes. Annual increment data of the dominant species from the secondary sources (like Working Plan Document) can be used to refine the estimate, particularly in grids where there is no change in the density class over the past few years. Such data is needed as, while remote sensing data may not show any increase in grids where there is no change in canopy density, there would certainly be an increase in carbon stock because of annual increments in the above ground woody volume of the tree. http://moef.nic.in/assets/redd-bk2.pdf