New Reference Values for Baseline Soil Carbon Stocks Published

The classification of land into vegetation communities is an important part of site mapping for afforestation and the assessment of site suitability for forest establishment. For afforestation carbon projects operating under the Skógarkolefni Carbon Code, it is necessary to estimate carbon stocks at the outset of project activities. Until now, however, suitable reference values to support such assessments have not been readily available.

To address this need, reference values for soil carbon stocks have now been published on the Skógarkolefni website in the supporting material for Section 3.1, which deals with baseline carbon stocks. The reference values provide estimates of soil carbon stocks to a depth of 30 cm for most of the land units used in afforestation mapping based on the classification of land into vegetation communities.

The values have been calculated for terrestrial habitat types according to the classification system developed by the Natural Science Institute of Iceland (NSII). Part of the data used in the calculations was obtained from Vistgerðir á Íslandi [Habitats in Iceland] (NSII Report No. 54).

Reference values are presented for the habitat types and habitat type classes for which sufficient data were available. Project owners and project staff can use these values to estimate baseline carbon stocks at the start of projects while also taking account of variation between habitat types.

• Reference values for soil carbon stocks (Icelandic only - an English version will be made available soon)