Tropical forests account for about half the world’s terrestrial carbon, primarily stored in aboveground biomass (AGB), and so play a key role in the terrestrial carbon cycle. Central African tropical forests constitute the second largest continuous block of tropical forests in the world, and the majority are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Despite this, they are relatively understudied compared to other tropical regions and their contribution to the global terrestrial carbon cycle is not well unknown. The overarching research goal of this dissertation is to quantify AGB storage in Central African tropical forest regrowth following forest cover loss, to improve our understanding of the carbon sequestration potential of forest regrowth in Central Africa. The following three research hypotheses, each comprising a dissertation chapter (Chapters 2-4) and all concerning DRC Mai Ndombe province, are addressed: #1. Using dry and wet season Landsat 8 imagery will significantly improve forest height prediction (with airborne LiDAR training data) compared to using single season images. #2. Using a six month time period of Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) observations is sufficient for forest AGB assessment with 10% uncertainty at Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) project scale. #3. The impact of regrowth species differences on mature tree AGB (at 25 m GEDI footprint scale) will be less than the 10% REDD+ forest AGB reporting uncertainty.
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