Mind the gap: reconciling tropical forest carbon flux estimates from earth observation and national reporting requires transparency

Table 4 The 2020 area of different forest types and associated carbon removal flux according to different datasets in Brazil

Forest type	Global EO***		NGHGI-Brazil		SEEG-Brazil
Forest type	Area (2020) (1000 ha)	Gross removals (GtCO₂ yr⁻¹)	Area (~ 2020)* (1000 ha)	Gross removals* (GtCO₂ yr⁻¹)	Area (2020) (1000 Mha)	Gross removals (GtCO₂ yr⁻¹)
Managed old-growth	195,954	− 0.42	220,158	− 0.32	217,702	− 0.31
Secondary forest	23,998	− 0.16	21,877**	− 0.05**	8547	− 0.16
Plantation	6779	− 0.19	11,144	− 0.08	6311	− 0.003
Other land	31,732	–	5284	–	25,903	–
Total	258,463	− 0.77	258,463	− 0.45	258,463	− 0.48

The carbon removal component is for the average annual removal flux for the period 2001 to 2020. For an explanation of different data sources see “Methodology”. For the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory (NGHGI) [38] only pixels in the managed forest area outlined in NC4 were used (green regions in Fig. 3c)
^*As the NGHGI is only available up to 2016, numbers for the NGHGI have been adjusted by multiplying by the fractional difference in the area/gross removals of each forest type in 2016 and 2020 according to SEEG (MapBiomas) SEEG-Brazil [43]
^**This value also includes selective logging areas and gross removals from Amazonia
^***These values are based on Adjustment 2b—i.e., using the NGHGI managed forest lands to extract area and removals in the Global Earth Observation (EO) [17]

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