Mangrove carbon stocks in Zambezi River Delta, Mozambique

Carbon stocks in mangroves in the Zambezi River Delta of Mozambique (East Africa) were inventoried using a stratified random sampling approach from 2012 to 2016. A total 52 plots containing 287 subplots were objectively distributed using a GIS based spatial decision support system (SDSS) to represent the characteristics of mangroves and the operating constraints within the Delta area. The inventory was designed to provide estimates of above- and below-ground carbon stocks for the entire Delta. Data include species, height and diameter at breast height for overstory, understory and dead trees, mass of woody debris, litter, and ground vegetation. Data to estimate soil carbon and nitrogen content to 2 meters depth are also included.
Mangroves are recognized for their numerous ecosystem services and functions that are critical to environmental health and human wellbeing in the regions where they occur and beyond. Although mangroves comprise only 0.7% of the world’s tropical forests, they have been shown to contain globally-significant carbon pools, storing up to five times more carbon than typical upland tropical forests per area. As a result, there is interest in considering mangroves in national climate adaptation and mitigation strategies, yet little research related to climate change and carbon sequestration has been completed in mangroves, especially in Africa. WWF-Mozambique’s project, Sustainable Finance for the Protected Areas System of Mozambique recommended development of a pilot project for carbon sequestration in the mangrove forests of the Zambezi Delta, Mozambique, with aims to conserve mangroves in the Zambezi River Delta through reforestation mechanisms and implementation of sustainable use and management activities with local stakeholders, financed sustainably through carbon markets. The USFS project, The Zambezi River Delta Mangrove Carbon Project: A Pilot Baseline Assessment for REDD+ Reporting and Monitoring is a foundational scientific component of the larger WWF effort, designed to quantify the mangrove carbon stocks to contribute to Mozambique’s REDD+ National Program by building in-country technical capacity and measuring the soil and vegetation carbon pools in the intact mangrove stands within the Zambezi River Delta.
This project was also used to assess the distribution of mangroves and change in distribution over time. The results of these analyses are available in Shapiro et al. 2015. Lidar data were also collected as part of this project for a portion of the Zambezi River Delta; that data along with remote sensing derived canopy height data are available online (Lagomasino et al. 2016). Original metadata date was 10/03/2017. On 03/25/2019 we added a file containing the coordinates of the carbon inventory plots and dominant species found on each plot, in addition to minor metadata updates.