Mohd Nazip Suratman

Carbon Sequestration Potential of Mangroves in Southeast Asia

Mangrove forests are considered to be a unique and complex major component of coastal zones in the tropical and sub-tropical regions. They represent transitional ecosystems where the ocean, land, and freshwater meet. Their main vegetation components are generally evergreen trees or shrubs that grow along coastlines, brackish estuaries or delta habitats. Mangrove habitats are easily recognized as they are located at tideland mud or sand flats inundated daily with sea water. They not only play critical roles in ensuring sustainability of coastal ecosystems, but also in fulfilling important socio-economic benefits to coastal communities. Mangroves are formed in swampy areas with low oxygen conditions prevailing below the first few centimeters. Mangrove trees produce aerial roots that have the three functions of providing gas exchange, water uptake, and support to older trees. To overcome the low amount of oxygen, many mangrove trees including Sonneratia spp., Avicennia spp., Brugueira spp., Ceriops spp., and Rhizophora spp. develop aerial root systems above the anaerobic substrate to allow gas exchange through the lenticels of the roots (Tomlinson, 1986). These roots also provide lateral support for the trees permitting them to withstand waves and winds in the environment (Lugo, 1990). Many mangrove species, such as those listed above, produce seeds that germinate and develop into seedlings while still attached to the parent tree known as vivipary (Duke, 1992; Abbott, 1994). Viviparity allows propagules to root more rapidly after dispersal when lodged in the mud. This is an important adaptation for propagules establishing themselves in tidal environment (Lugo, 1990). Mangrove forests’ latitudinal distributions are correlated with sea-surface temperature, and tend to mirror coral reef and sea grass bed conditions (Duke, 1992). Optimal growth conditions for mangroves are high humidity, high year-round

Modelling of Carbon Sequestration in Rubber(Hevea brasiliensis) Plantations

The issues of global warming and climate change have been widely debated over the past few decades by researchers, managers and leaders. It was estimated that the annual global air temperature may increase by approximately 2.5 °C by the end of the century (NAST 2000). In 1992, the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC) produced an international environmental treaty at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The objective of the treaty was to stabilize greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of GHGs that contributes the highest emission (Dulal and Akhbar 2013). Malaysia remains committed to climate change agenda and recently introduced a new national policy on climate change and green technology. The country has recently passed a renewable energy act and reaffirms its commitment to a pledge during Rio Earth Summit and signed the UNFCCC and currently listed into non-Annex 1 countries.

Estimation of above ground biomass of Keniam forests, Taman Negara Pahang

Above-ground tree biomass was estimated for the low-land forests of Taman Negara, Pahang. Five transect lines measuring at 100 × 20 m of each were established for this study. The transect lines consist of a total of 439 trees. The tree height and the diameter at breast height (DBH) of all trees (≥ 10 cm) were measured in each transect line. Kato et al. (1978) function was used to estimate the three components of above-ground tree biomass viz: stem, branches and leaves. The total above-ground tree biomass for all transect lines in the study area were computed from the summation of these biomass components. The means of above-ground tree biomass were at the ranged of 612.2 kg to 983.6 kg. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) test procedure revealed that there is no significant difference in the means of above-ground biomass between transect lines. Results of the analysis suggests that the factors exist within different localities has no influence on the estimated above-ground tree biomass. Hence, it is hoped that this study can provide useful information with regards to the biomass estimation as an indicator of tree carbon stocks.

Modelling above-ground live trees biomass and carbon stock estimation of tropical lowland Dipterocarp forest: integration of field-based and remotely sensed estimates

ABSTRACT Carbon exists as carbon dioxide (CO2) which is one of the greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere that has an enormous influence on the impact of climate change. Therefore, the forest plays an undeniably pivotal role as a carbon sink, which absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This research aims to develop allometric equation for above-ground live tree biomass (AGB) by combining field-based, combination of field data observation and technology (WV-3 and light detection and ranging (lidar)) and by using only technology derivation. The independent predictor was induced based on the literature review and theories, and an ordinary least square (OLS) estimator will be used to develop multiple linear regression models. During model selection, the best model fit was selected by calculating statistical parameters such as residual of the coefficient of determination (R2) selection methods, adjusted coefficient of determination (R2adj), root mean square error, graphical analysis of the residuals, standard error (Syx), and Akaike information criterion. An allometric equation of this research was developed using carbon stocks as dependent variables, and four of the predictor’s variables: diameter at breast height (DBH); total height observed at field (hF); total height derived from airborne lidar (hL); and morphometric variables of the crown projection area (CPA). Based on the statistic indicators, the most suitable model is Model 1, ln (Sc) = – β0 + β1 ln (hL) + β2 ln (DBH) + β3 ln (CPA) for the combination of remote sensing and field observation; ln (Sc) = – β0 + β1 ln (hF) + β2 ln (DBH) for field inventory only; and ln (Sc) = – β0 + β1 ln (hL) + β2 ln (CPA) for remote sensing only. This model is reliable in forest management to estimate the AGB and carbon stock estimation using a selection of variable sources.

Aboveground biomass and carbon stocks modelling using non-linear regression model

Aboveground biomass (AGB) is an important source of uncertainty in the carbon estimation for the tropical forest due to the variation biodiversity of species and the complex structure of tropical rain forest. Nevertheless, the tropical rainforest holds the most extensive forest in the world with the vast diversity of tree with layered canopies. With the usage of optical sensor integrate with empirical models is a common way to assess the AGB. Using the regression, the linkage between remote sensing and a biophysical parameter of the forest may be made. Therefore, this paper exemplifies the accuracy of non-linear regression equation of quadratic function to estimate the AGB and carbon stocks for the tropical lowland Dipterocarp forest of Ayer Hitam forest reserve, Selangor. The main aim of this investigation is to obtain the relationship between biophysical parameter field plots with the remotely-sensed data using nonlinear regression model. The result showed that there is a good relationship between crown projection area (CPA) and carbon stocks (CS) with Pearson Correlation (p < 0.01), the coefficient of correlation (r) is 0.671. The study concluded that the integration of Worldview-3 imagery with the canopy height model (CHM) raster based LiDAR were useful in order to quantify the AGB and carbon stocks for a larger sample area of the lowland Dipterocarp forest.

Remote Sensing Technology: Recent Advancements for Mangrove Ecosystems

Mangroves are considered to be a unique component of coastal zones in the tropical and sub-tropical regions. They not only play critical roles in fulfilling important socio-economic benefits to coastal communities, but also in ensuring sustainability of coastal ecosystems. Despite the important aspects of their roles, habitat destruction continues to be a major threat due their conversion into other types of land uses. For the last two decades, the use of remote sensing techniques for a variety of mangrove analyses have been reported by many authors. These applications are essential for mangroves as they often involve an extensive area because more often accessibility and larger topographic maps are not available for detailed mapping. General conclusions are that the newer generations of data (i.e., very high resolution [VHR], hyper spectral and synthetic aperture radar [SAR]) and techniques have improved the accuracy in characterizations of mangroves over the traditional remote sensing systems. This chapter reviews recent advancements in remote sensing for mangroves with a particular emphasis on data, techniques and their applications. Results of experiment and investigation for mangrove assessments are reported. Several new approaches and novel applications of recent techniques are also highlighted. In addition, several constraints of the use of remote sensing applications for mangrove monitoring are identified. Finally, future opportunities of data and techniques for mangrove assessments are described.

Conservation of the critically endangered tree species Dipterocarpus semivestitus in Malaysia

Dipterocarpaceae is a tree family which consists of 17 genera and approximately 475 species. The Malaysian Plant Red List of Peninsular Malaysia Dipterocarpaceae reported that 35 species are endangered and 15 species are critically endangered. Of the critically endangered species, six are endemics to Peninsular Malaysia in which Dipterocarpus semivestitus or locally known as Keruing padi falls under this category as listed by the Red List and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Historical records show that this species grows only in two places in the world; central Kalimantan and Perak. In 2006, Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM) researchers discovered a total of 53 trees of D. semivestitus in a patch of freshwater swamp forest in the Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) campus in Sri Iskandar, Perak. The stands are reported to be the last population of D. semivestitus in the world as the forest area in central Kalimantan population has been converted into oil palm. In order to protect the species, there is an urgent need for conservation measures to be taken to monitor the populations and aid its recovery and restoration. This paper highlights the distribution, habitat, conservation status, morphological characteristics as well as threat to this species. This information is not only much needed as there are gaps in our understanding of critically endangered plants, but also is essential for the management and conservation of countrys botanical heritage.

Multi temporal Landsat TM for monitoring mangrove changes in Pulau Indah, Malaysia

This paper presents a change detection analysis of land use/cover in Pulau Indah, Selangor, Malaysia using a time series of Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) imagery for the years of 1995, 1999 and 2005. The work aims at mapping the extent of mangrove resources, to detect the changes of mangrove area and to study the driving forces that have led to the changes of mangroves in Pulau Indah. Using Maximum Likelihood algorithm, the supervised classification procedure was used to classify the images which produced seven land/use class viz water, urban, grasslands, oil palm, mixed crop, mangroves and cleared area. The area of mangroves for the years 1995, 1999 and 2005 were estimated to be 7,738.4 ha, 6,648.1 ha and 6,524.1 ha, respectively. The decreased in mangrove areas for the first and second intervals were at the rate of 2.73% and 0.24% per annum, respectively. The accuracy of classified maps were evaluated using classification error matrices. From an individual classification, the overall accuracies of the 1995, 1999 and 2005 thematic maps were 98.0%, 97.1% and 95.8%, respectively. The decrease in mangroves in Pulau Indah for both intervals was mostly attributed to their conversion to urban areas driven by the government policies to transform part of the island into industrial park.

Influence of ecotourism activities on the forest structure and light intensity in forests of Taman Negara Pahang

Ecotourism activities in protected area such as in Taman Negara (i.e., hiking and camping) may result in canopy opening which increases light transmission to the forests floor and influencing the variation in forest structure. Thus, this study was conducted to evaluate the effects of ecotourism activities on the light intensity and examine its influence to the forest structure in the protected forests of Taman Negara Pahang. Information on light intensity and forest stand attributes were collected in a total of 16, 20 m × 25 m plots which consists of camping sites, forest trails and natural areas. All trees ≥ 1 cm in diameter-at-breast height (DBH) were measured, tagged and numbered. The light intensity was measured using hemispherical photography at nine points randomly sampled in each plot. The diffuse light intensity recorded in hemispherical photographs was analysed (in percent) using RGBFisheye software. From the field measurements, there is a significant difference (P≤0.05) in basal area between two conditions (i.e., disturbed and undisturbed). The means of light intensity as recorded in hemispherical photographs of forest trails, camping sites and natural areas were 11.37%, 10.05% and 8.32%, respectively. Results from the analysis of variance indicated that there was a significant difference in the means of light intensity among study conditions (P≤0.05). Moreover, all study areas showed an inverse J-shaped DBH distribution which indicates the presence of abundance regeneration in the forest and the stands are still at the stage of development. Therefore, the study showed that the increase in light intensity in disturbed areas may result in the variation of forest structure beneath canopy. This could be because of the lesser stratification of canopy layers and the tolerance between some tree species and light in the disturbed areas.

Incorporating agroforestry practices in Karas (Aquilaria malaccensis) plantations in Malaysia

Analysis on tree growth data and survival rate from a 6-year old Karas agroforestry plantations in Rembau, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia is reported in this paper. Three agroforestry components involved in this study include: (1) Karas monoculture, (2) Karas intercropped with lemongrass, and (3) Karas intercropped with guava. Three replicative plots measuring at 6 rows × 5 column of trees were established for each component. The diameter at breast height (DBH) of each component was measured within four time intervals while height was measured within two time intervals which produced three sets and one set of growth, respectively. From the field measurements, the DBH growth were 0.65, 0.71 and 0.95 cm respectively while the height growth were 6.82 and 12.21 m respectively. The means of DBH of Karas for the three components ranged from 1.94 to 2.90 cm with means of height ranged from 3.96 to 7.59 m. These translated into the Periodic Anual Increment (PAI) of diameter and height which were ranged from 1.74 to 2.43 cm/year and 3.47 to 6.65 m /year, respectively. From the analysis of variance (ANOVA), it was found that there is a significant difference in the means DBH and height of Karas among different components and growth interval (P≤0.05). From t-test analysis, there is a significant difference between the first and the second height growth measurements (P≤0.05). However, there is no significant difference in the survival rate among all components (P≥0.05). This concludes that there appear to be intercropping effects in the growth of a 6-year old Karas agroforestry system. The results from this study will be used for subsequent investigation in the assessments of growth performance of Karas under different intercropping components.