Scenarios of carbon for the fir forest National Park El Chico, Hidalgo, Mexico

Abstract

Forests in protected areas are seen as a major store of carbon whose presence in the ecosystem depends largely not manifest adverse natural and anthropogenic phenomena, the objective of this study was to determine the best scenario for the capture and storage carbon in forests of Abies religiosa in the Parque Nacional El Chico, Hidalgo. For the process of calculating carbon content there was a forest inventory in 2011 in an area of 212.95 ha that includes scenarios 1) forest preserved, 2) moderately disturbed forest and 3) altered forest. We obtained the actual stock per hectare were multiplied by the density of fir wood and carbon coefficient for the species. The results showed that the preserved forest had the lowest value (62.6 ton C/ ha), while the disturbed forest had the highest value of 166.6 ton C ha-1. The latter is the closest to the perfect setting for the storage and carbon sequestration by forests of fir, because the trees are of different ages and heights diameter categories allowing the forests storing carbon dynamics remain for periods of time. In contrast in the forest retained most of the trees are overmature and show no significant increases in carbon storage.