Potenziale Non Realizzato - Biomassa Vivente (AGB+BGB)

Land Usev08.00 credits/per_km2

Responsible:Niccolò Calandri

Unrealized Potential — Living Biomass (AGB+BGB)

Overview

The Unrealized Potential — Living Biomass (AGB+BGB) layer quantifies the additional carbon that could be stored in all living plant tissue (above-ground + below-ground) if the land were restored to native vegetation, in tC/ha. This combined metric captures the full living biomass carbon opportunity.

By combining AGB and BGB unrealized potential, this layer provides a complete assessment of how much additional carbon living vegetation could sequester through restoration. It accounts for both the visible above-ground structures and the hidden root systems that together constitute the biologically active carbon pool.

This is the key metric for REDD+ additionality assessments, nature-based climate solutions sizing, and biodiversity-carbon co-benefit analysis since living biomass restoration simultaneously creates habitat structure.

Calculation Methodology

Baseline extraction — Sum of AGB and BGB unrealized potential rasters from Walker et al. 2022
Feature engineering — NDVI, land cover, elevation
Random Forest downscaling to ~200 m resolution

Output unit: tC/ha (additional living biomass carbon achievable)

Data Sources

Code	Name	Provider	Type	Coverage	Resolution	Reference Year
Walker 2022	Unrealized Potential (AGB+BGB)	Walker et al. / S3	Raster (COG)	Global	~300 m	2016
`COPERNICUS/S2_SR_HARMONIZED`	Sentinel-2 L2A	ESA/Copernicus	Multispectral	Global	10 m	2017 — present
`GOOGLE/DYNAMICWORLD/V1`	Dynamic World	Google/WRI	Land cover	Global	10 m	2015 — present
`USGS/SRTMGL1_003`	SRTM DEM	NASA/USGS	Elevation	60N-56S	30 m	2000

Quality Range and Levels

Indicator	Unit	Range	Inverted
`carbon_stock_unrealized_potential_agb_bgb`	tC/ha	[0, 8, 25, 70, 130, 250]	No

Level	Thresholds	Interpretation
E (Very Low)	< 8 tC/ha	Near natural living biomass capacity
D (Low)	8-25 tC/ha	Minor living biomass gain possible
C (Moderate)	25-70 tC/ha	Significant restoration opportunity
B (High)	70-130 tC/ha	Large biomass deficit — priority restoration
A (Very High)	> 130 tC/ha	Massive living biomass restoration potential

Technical Notes

Combined AGB+BGB potential is the most relevant metric for living biomass restoration projects
Root biomass recovery lags above-ground recovery by several years
The metric does not account for SOC gains that accompany biomass restoration
Actual carbon sequestration rates depend on species selection and management

References

Walker, W.S. et al. (2022). PNAS, 119(23), e2111312119.
Spawn, S.A. et al. (2020). Scientific Data, 7, Article 112.
Breiman, L. (2001). "Random Forests". Machine Learning, 45(1), pp. 5-32.

Data Sources & References

Sources

WRD_CARBN_22

Methodology

Il layer Potenziale Non Realizzato - Biomassa Vivente (AGB+BGB) quantifica il carbonio aggiuntivo totale nella biomassa vivente (aerea + sotterranea) raggiungibile attraverso il restauro alla vegetazione nativa, secondo Walker et al. (2022). Viene calcolato sommando i potenziali non realizzati AGB e BGB. Il raster combinato viene raffinato tramite Random Forest con NDVI (Sentinel-2), copertura del suolo (Dynamic World) ed elevazione (SRTM). E la metrica chiave per dimensionare progetti di riforestazione e soluzioni climatiche basate sulla natura in termini di carbonio nella biomassa vivente. Output in tC/ha a ~200 m.