Estimación del almacenamiento de carbono de la especie polylepis reticulata, mediante el uso de imágenes multiespectrales, en el bosque de polylepis de la reserva de producción de fauna Chimborazo.

Abstract

The present investigation proposes: to estimate the carbon stored in the Polylepis reticulata species, through the use of multiespectral images, in the Polylepis Forest of the Chimborazo Fauna Production Reserve; through two methodologies, the first that was based on a review of specialised literature to obtain the allometric equation that was used for the calculation of biomass, for which it was necessary to record data such as Diameter at Breast Height (DBH), height (h) and cup diameter (CD), which were raised by dividing the forest area into 54 plots, resulting in a value of 6,3504 ton/ha of biomass, then carbon corresponding to 50% of biomass was quantified. Its resulting value was 3,1752 ton/ha, and finally, CO2 was obtained with a total of 11,6435 ton/ha. The second methodology starts from the processing in ther ArcGIS software of an orthophoto mosaic that is characterized by having a resolution of 9 cm and four spectral bands, said methodology is called Crop Surface Model or Crop Surface Model (CSM), which corresponds to a subtraction between the digital surface model (MDS) and the digital terrain model (MDT), obtaining the average transect height of the individuals of the species under study, then, through a statistical analysis, a logarithmic equation was generated that it was used for the calculation of biomass, with a total value of 6,348 tons/ha, then carbon with a value of 3,174 tons/ha was obtained and finally a total of 11,639 tons/ha for CO2. In the end, a statistical correlation of Pearson was made between the two methodologies, which indicated that there is a significant correlation with a positive coefficient r=0.99.