Tropical forests, including the Miombo woodlands in Malawi, are important in addressing climate change and mitigation through biomass and carbon storage. The primary objectives were to study tree growth and biomass accumulation through dendrochronology and to understand how degradation affects biomass availability for wood energy in Malawi. Dendrochronology was used to observe growth increments and estimate biomass accumulation in the Liwonde Forest Reserve in Malawi. The growth rates of the destructively sampled and analyzed species were particularly low in the range of 1.85mm to 2.97mm per year. The disc increment percentage diameter growth values for size classes ranged from as high as 17% annual growth experienced in the 5cm-9.99cm diameter size class to 3% growth experienced in the above 25cm diameter size class.Most countries in Africa lack quantitative data on forest degradation rates, and this study demonstrates how a remote sensing fractional cover tool that maps across a broad landscape of forests and trees outside of forests can be used to do this quantitative analysis. The study presents a new detailed forest map for Malawi, with spatial and quantitative measurements of both forest degradation and deforestation. The study estimated the maximum biomass stock in the Liwonde forest reserve through forest inventory data and growth increments obtained from the dendrochronology analysis. The average above-ground carbon accumulation estimated in this Miombo forest inventory was 33.77 t C ha per year and increased to 37.3 t C ha over a one-year period. After forecasting wood provision from the forest reserve and comparing it to the current supply from the forestry inventory, the findings indicate that the reserve cannot meet the district's demand. Currently, 38% of its 26,472.8 hectares are deforested and degraded. The findings call for stringent management proscriptions for the reserve to be sustainably utilized to meet the community’s wood energy needs.
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