Hello everyone,
I’m new to InVEST and I want to use the carbon storage model. I had no problem creating the tiff and csv files and getting results, but I have a question about the values I used.
In the manual is mentioned that the values of the IPCC can be used, however “IPCC reports in units of biomass, while InVEST uses mass of elemental carbon. To convert metric tons of biomass to metric tons of C, multiply by a conversion factor, which varies typically from 0.43 to 0.51. Conversion factors for different major tree types and climatic regions are listed in Table 4.3 on page 4.48 of IPCC (2006).”
As I understand this conversion factor is for aboveground biomass only. In my case the avobeground biomass is 140 and the conversion factor 0.47, so i did this calculation (65.8). My question is what do I do with the below-ground biomass, that I have to calculate from a ration in table 4.4 that reports in tonne root d.m. (tonne shoot d.m.)-1]. I used the converted number of aboveground biomass (65.8) in the ratio in order to calculate the below-ground, but I’m starting to doubt if that’s the right to do.
Has anyone used the IPCC values and had the same question? I would appreciate any help.