Carbon benefits from protected areas in the conterminous United States

Table 2 Net forest area change rates (%), areas (km ² ), and carbon benefits (Tg C) for protected (Prot) and unprotected (Unprot) forestlands by the three geographic regions (defined in Figure 2 c) during the 9-year period ^*

				Unprotected	C	Protected	C Benefits
	Prot	Unprot	Difference	Forest Area¹	Mitigation	Forest Area	From
Region	(%)	(%)	(%)	(km²)	(Tg)	(km²)	Prot. (Tg)²
North	−0.75	−1.76	1.01	507,734	13.897	56,200	5.417
	(2.44)	(1.67)
South	−1.30	−5.84	4.54	605,483	49.055	27,500	9.123
	(2.42)	(1.97)
West	−1.19	−6.64	5.45	163,775	22.301	120,400	52.059
	(1.05)	(4.37)

^* The change rates were c alculated as the average of state means within a given region. Difference was estimated as Rate_prot - Rate_unprot. Thus, the more positive the difference, the greater the potential in climate change mitigation by adjusting current forest area loss rates in unprotected forests. The numbers in the parentheses are standard deviation, also in percentage. Carbon (C) mitigation (including both reduced emissions and additional fixation) and C benefits from protection are both in teragrams.
¹ Area calculated from the PADUS1.1 layer and the NLCD Retrofit Change Map in 2001, in which applying 20% reduction in net forest becoming nonforest rate would result in corresponding amounts of carbon mitigation shown on the next column.
² The carbon benefit attributed to the protected areas in each region is based on the reduced forest area loss in protected area forests and the associated carbon.

ISSN: 1750-0680