Geospatial Technology Methods for Carbon Stock Assessment: A Comprehensive Review

Carbon stock estimation is becoming an important component for fighting against global warming. Assessment of biomass can give an idea of the amount of CO₂ that can be removed from the atmosphere by forests and other plantations. Geo-Spatial technologies, including Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), offer the mean to enable rapid assessment of terrestrial biomass over large areas in a timely and cost-effective manner, allowing for the estimation of above and below ground biomass. Hence, the deployment of an integrating RS-GIS approach for precision carbon management is of high significance. This article provides a review of various RS and GIS techniques used in forest aboveground biomass mapping and monitoring as well as highpoints the associated challenges and opportunities. The review concluded that the use of RS and GIS in large-scale forest aboveground biomass assessment provides a sound alternative when compared to the use of conventional approaches. It was noted that the freely available moderate resolution optical sensors could be used reliably for estimating forest carbon stock. Furthermore, the integration of multi-sensor data in a GIS environment increased the accuracy of the estimation results. This study helps contributing to the topic in a way that it illustrates the growing developments using geospatial technologies by identifying most sensitive RS variables to measurable biophysical parameters. Furthermore, it demonstrates the usefulness of geospatial technologies for estimating terrestrial carbon sequestered. Finally, gaps, limitations and the need for further studies are underlined.