Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of plates
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Foreword by David W. Pearce
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Recreation: valuation methods
- 3 Recreation: predicting values
- 4 Recreation: predicting visits
- 5 Timber valuation
- 6 Modelling and mapping timber yield and its value
- 7 Modelling and valuing carbon sequestration in trees, timber products and forest soils
- 8 Modelling opportunity cost: agricultural output values
- 9 Cost-benefit analysis using GIS
- 10 Conclusions and future directions
- References
- Index
- Plate Section
7 - Modelling and valuing carbon sequestration in trees, timber products and forest soils
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of plates
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Foreword by David W. Pearce
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Recreation: valuation methods
- 3 Recreation: predicting values
- 4 Recreation: predicting visits
- 5 Timber valuation
- 6 Modelling and mapping timber yield and its value
- 7 Modelling and valuing carbon sequestration in trees, timber products and forest soils
- 8 Modelling opportunity cost: agricultural output values
- 9 Cost-benefit analysis using GIS
- 10 Conclusions and future directions
- References
- Index
- Plate Section
Summary
Introduction
The global process of industrialisation which has grown so rapidly over the past two centuries has, in more recent years, led to detectable increases in the concentration of insulating greenhouse gases (GHGs). These have in turn resulted in increases in global temperatures, and these are expected to continue rising with GHG emissions for the foreseeable future (Houghton et al., 1992; Wigley and Raper, 1992; IPCC, 1996a, 2001a, 2001b; Zecca and Brusa, 1997). The most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) summarises the findings of contemporary research as showing:
that the globally averaged surface temperatures have increased by 0.6 ± 0.2 °C over the 20th Century; and that, for the range of scenarios developed in the IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES), the globally averaged surface air temperature is projected by models to warm 1.4 to 5.8 °C by 2100 relative to 1990, and globally averaged sea level is projected by models to rise 0.09 to 0.88 m by 2100.
(IPCC, 2001b: p. 3)The consequences of such climatic change are uncertain but potentially highly adverse (Warr and Smith, 1993; Parry, 1993, 2000). The IPCC concludes that:
Projected climate changes during the 21st Century have the potential to lead to future large-scale and possibly irreversible changes in Earth systems resulting in impacts at continental and global scales. … Depending on the rate of ice loss, the rate and magnitude of sea-level rise could greatly exceed the capacity of human and natural systems to adapt without substantial impacts. (IPCC, 2001b: p. 6)
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- Chapter
- Information
- Applied Environmental EconomicsA GIS Approach to Cost-Benefit Analysis, pp. 184 - 218Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003