The Current Carbon Stock — Above-Ground Biomass (AGB) layer quantifies the carbon stored in living vegetation above the soil surface, including tree trunks, branches, leaves, and bark, expressed in tonnes of carbon per hectare (tC/ha). Above-ground biomass is the most visible and directly measurable carbon pool in terrestrial ecosystems, and it typically represents the largest share of living biomass carbon in forested landscapes.
AGB is a critical metric for carbon credit verification, REDD+ monitoring, national greenhouse gas inventories, and ESG reporting. Changes in AGB directly reflect deforestation, reforestation, forest degradation, and natural regrowth processes. The dataset is derived from the global carbon density baseline of Walker et al. (2022), which maps carbon pools at ~300 m resolution for the year 2016. To achieve finer spatial detail, the baseline AGB layer is downscaled using a Random Forest machine learning pipeline that integrates current satellite-derived features.
The AGB pool specifically captures carbon in:
Random Forest downscaling pipeline for AGB extraction:
Output unit: tC/ha (tonnes of carbon per hectare, AGB pool only)
| Code | Name | Provider | Type | Coverage | Resolution | Reference Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Walker 2022 | Global Carbon Density (AGB) | Walker et al. / S3 | Raster (COG) | Global | ~300 m | 2016 |
COPERNICUS/S2_SR_HARMONIZED | Sentinel-2 L2A | ESA/Copernicus | Multispectral | Global | 10 m | 2017 — present |
GOOGLE/DYNAMICWORLD/V1 | Dynamic World | Google/WRI | Land cover | Global | 10 m | 2015 — present |
USGS/SRTMGL1_003 | SRTM DEM | NASA/USGS | Elevation | 60N-56S | 30 m | 2000 |
| Indicator | Unit | Range | Inverted |
|---|---|---|---|
carbon_stock_current_agb | tC/ha | [0, 5, 20, 60, 100, 200] | No |
Inverted = No: a higher value indicates greater above-ground carbon storage.
| Level | Thresholds | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| E (Very Low) | < 5 tC/ha | Bare soil, urban areas, deserts, recently cleared land |
| D (Low) | 5-20 tC/ha | Sparse shrublands, degraded grasslands, young plantations |
| C (Moderate) | 20-60 tC/ha | Croplands with trees, open woodlands, Mediterranean maquis |
| B (High) | 60-100 tC/ha | Mature temperate forests, dense shrublands, managed forests |
| A (Very High) | > 100 tC/ha | Tropical forests, old-growth temperate forests, mangroves |
Il layer Carbon Stock Attuale - AGB viene calcolato estraendo la componente di biomassa aerea (Above-Ground Biomass) dalla mappa globale di densita di carbonio di Walker et al. (2022), anno di riferimento 2016. La biomassa aerea comprende il carbonio presente in tronchi, rami, foglie, corteccia e alberi morti in piedi. Il raster baseline a ~300 m viene raffinato attraverso un algoritmo di downscaling Random Forest che utilizza come variabili predittive l'NDVI mediano da Sentinel-2, la classificazione di copertura del suolo da Dynamic World e l'elevazione da SRTM. Il modello viene addestrato sulla relazione tra valori AGB e variabili ausiliarie, quindi predice la densita AGB alla risoluzione di ~200 m. L'output e espresso in tonnellate di carbonio per ettaro (tC/ha). Metriche di validazione (R-quadro, RMSE) vengono calcolate tramite cross-validazione.