The assessment of environmental functions of forests is essential for FAO Forest Resources Assessment 2000 (FRA 2000). It directly relates to role of forests in the carbon cycling and maintenance of biological diversity. The present report deals with forest biomass estimate and specifically describes the progress made so far towards the establishment of a geographic information system and an electronic information system, containing integrated cartographic and tabular information for data analysis, modeling and the implementation of special studies on selected thematic elements.
A global database on forest biomass is needed to support the information requirements of FRA 2000, including estimates for tree volume/biomass by broad type categories and political units. Information on forest volume and biomass is important for developing global perspectives on wood supply and for computations of carbon cycling for climate change analyses.
The first step was to screen and analyze the existing information on volume and biomass and to organize the existing knowledge in the framework of the existing FRA Forest Resources Information System.
Given the various sources and types of forest volume data available at FAO Headquarters in Rome, an in-depth review of existing documentation was undertaken, specifically aimed at assessing the completeness and reliability of baseline data. Following the review, the organization and classification of the baseline documentation in country boxes conforming to the general procedures adopted within FRA was undertaken. The classification of baseline documentation included the coding of forest inventory specifications, including information such as the description of the surveyed area, sampling method, author and reference year. Of the entire body of documents reviewed, those forest inventories and/or documents that were considered of some utility were entered into a general database, Biomass.dbf. Of these documents, those considered relevant to the FRA Volume/Biomass Special Studies were described in further detail in a linked database. The later documents were considered in function of their reliability. The reporting units of the documents in this database, Bio_tab.dbf, were then georeferenced into the FRA Geographic Information System. The following is a detailed report of the sequence of steps taken, from the review of existing documentation to the georefencing of the data.
