Estimating Biomass Carbon stocks in Agriculture Land for the Mediterranean using remote sensing data

Climate change has a crucial impact on European agriculture in plenty of ways. The role of land use systems, such as agriculture, as a climate change mitigation and adaptation strategy is important as these systems can collect atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and store carbon (C). Although biomass carbon storage in agriculture has been highly neglected. The methodological difficulties in estimating the C stock of biomass and soil storage of Carbon are reinforced by the lack of reliable estimates of the agriculture area. This research analyses the relationship between changes in tree cover in agricultural areas of the Mediterranean area (more specifically in the regions of Spain, Italy and Greece) and the storage of biomass carbon (associated with the related mitigation of CO2 emissions). Remote sensing images have become a valuable source of data for this analysis. Α set of remote sensing data with MODIS satellite images was used and was combined with Tier 1 carbon storage estimates to estimate carbon dioxide storage for the Mediterranean climate zones. The measurements for biomass carbon were made at the overall level for the Mediterranean but also separately for the national and regional levels of Italy, Greece and Spain. The findings of the research showed that the distribution of tree cover in agricultural areas widely followed the climatic zones. Most part of the agricultural land in Europe is estimated at levels around 10 t C / ha.