Table 1. Dataset summary.
| Source | Scales (Appropriate Tier) | Overview of base data. | Uncertainties Considered |
| FRA 1990 [18] | Africa (Tier 1) | Based on country scale values. Natural forest cover 568,000,000 ha in 1980 and 527,600,000 ha in 1990. AGBD for forested areas of 133 Mg ha−1. Plantation coverage is 0.5%, but plantation AGBD not available. Therefore plantations were not included. F = 5.3%. | None. |
| FRA 1990 [18] | Mozambique (Tier 1) | Based on country scale values. Natural forest cover 17,329,000 ha in 1990 with an annual deforestation rate of 0.7%. AGBD for forested areas of 80 Mg ha−1. Plantation coverage is 0.2%, but plantation AGBD not available. Therefore plantations were not included. | None. |
| Brown and Gaston 1995 [43] | Mozambique (Tier 2) | AGBD for woody formations from a Geographic Information System (GIS) model with a 5 km by 5 km resolution, driven by the FAO data describing climate, soils, population and vegetation distribution. AGBD estimate for woody formations in Mozambique was 57 Mg ha−1 in ∼1980. Converted to AGBD for Mozambique using the FAO’s 1980 Mozambique’s total forest cover area estimate of 17,505,400 ha. | None. |
| FRA 2000 [21] | Africa (Tier 1) | Based on country scale values. Forest cover including plantations was 649,866,000 ha in 2000 with an annual deforestation rate of 0.8%. AGBD for forested areas of 109 Mg ha−1. No adjustment factor applied, F = 0%. | None. |
| FRA 2000 Remote sensing [21] | Africa (Tier 3) | Based on Landsat products. Forest area including plantations was 519,000,000 (±37,000,000) ha (standard error of the mean). The annual deforestation rate was 0.34% (±0.06%) year−1 (standard error of the mean). Uses the ‘f3’ definition of forests which “is the broadest and includes the classes of long fallow and a higher fraction (one-third) of the fragmented forest class than the f2 definition” [21]. The average AGBD of forests was 109 Mg ha−1. F = 4.5%. | Incomplete remote sensing coverage: Random sampling only includes 10% of area considered. |
| FRA 2000 [21] | Mozambique (Tier 2) | Based on country scale values. Forest cover including plantations was 30,601,000 ha in 2000, with an annual deforestation rate of 0.2%. AGBD for forested areas of 55 Mg ha−1. | None. |
| FRA 2005 [22] | Africa (Tier 1) | Based on country scale values. Africa’s forest cover area, including plantations, was 699,361,000 ha in 1990, 655,613,000 ha in 2000, and 635,412,000 ha in 2005. Between 1990 and 2000, the annual deforestation rate was 0.64%, and between 2000 and 2005 the deforestation rate was 0.62%. No AGBD for forests was presented in the 2005 FRA report and so a value of 109 Mg ha−1 was used from the earlier FRA 2000 report. F = 0%. | None. |
| Drigo et al., 2008 [44] | Mozambique (Tier 3) | Based on sub-country values and MODIS products and with a 2.5 by 2.5 km resolution. Mozambique’s total AGB for woody stock was 1,615,091,000 Mg in 2004. | None. |
| FRA 2010 [20] | Africa (Tier 1) | Based on country scale values. Africa’s forest cover area, including plantations, was 749,238,000 ha in 1990, 708,564,000 ha in 2000, and 691,468,000 ha in 2005, and 674,419,000 ha in 2010. Combined above-ground and below-ground area density was 172.7 Mg ha−1 in 1990, 174.87 Mg ha−1 in 2000, 175.4 Mg ha−1 in 2005, and 176.0 Mg ha−1 in 2010. The root-shoot ratio for all years was 0.24. No Adjustment factor needed as this is the reference estimate. | None. |
| FRA 2010 [20] | Mozambique (Tier 2) | Based on country scale values. Mozambique’s forest cover area, including plantations, was 43,378,000 ha in 1990, 41,188,000 ha in 2000, 40,079,000 ha in 2005, and 39,022,000 ha in 2010. The carbon density of forests in Mozambique was 43 MgC ha−1. The carbon fraction was 0.47. | None. |
| Saatchi et al., 2011 [19] | Africa (Tier 3) | Based on GLAS, MODIS, QSCAT, and SRTM products. Estimates have a 1 by 1 km resolution. The mean total above-ground carbon in biomass for forests with 10% tree cover was 47,902,000,000 MgC. The carbon fraction was 0.5. F = 1.2%. | At 95% confidence, a low estimate of total above-ground carbon in biomass 44,584,000,000 MgC and high estimate of 51,616,000,000 MgC were generated using bootstrapping cross-validation. Uncertainty estimate includes observation, sampling and prediction errors. Uncertainty is scaled assuming pixels to be spatially uncorrelated. |
| Saatchi et al., 2011 [19] | Mozambique (Tier 3) | Based on GLAS, MODIS, QSCAT, and SRTM products. Estimates have a 1 by 1 km resolution. The mean total above-ground carbon in biomass for forests with 10% tree cover was 1,714,000,000 MgC. The carbon fraction was 0.5. | At 95% confidence, a low estimate of total above-ground carbon in biomass 1,655,000,000 MgC and high estimate of 1,714,000,000 MgC were generated using bootstrapping cross-validation. Uncertainty estimate includes observation, sampling and prediction errors. Uncertainty is scaled assuming pixels to be spatially uncorrelated. |
| Saatchi et al., 2011 [19] | Study Area (Tier 3) | Based on GLAS, MODIS, QSCAT, and SRTM products. Estimates have a 1 by 1 km resolution. The carbon fraction was 0.5. | We use the larger pixel (100 ha) 95% confidence interval uncertainty of ±53%. Under the assumption of independent random errors [19], we calculated the study area relative uncertainty to be ±1.56%. |
| Ryan et al. 2012 [16] | Study Area (Tier 3) | Based on ALOS-PALSAR with a 25 by 25 m resolution. Total carbon stored in AGB was 2,130,000 MgC in 2007 and 1,980,000 MgC in 2010. A carbon fraction of 0.48 was used [15]. | Regression uncertainty estimates generated by using a boot strapping approach. |
| Baccini et al., 2012 [11] | Africa (Tier 3) | Based on GLAS and MODIS products with a 500 by 500 m resolution. The total above-ground carbon in biomass for vegetation in tropical Africa 64,500,000,000 MgC. The carbon fraction was 0.5. F = 2.0%. | The uncertainty of ±8,600,000,000 MgC represents the 95% confidence interval. GLAS regression errors and modelling errors. Uncertainty is scaled assuming a complete correlation below a scale of 500 km and no correlation above this scale. |
| Baccini et al., 2012 [11] | Mozambique (Tier 3) | Based on GLAS and MODIS products with a 500 by 500 m resolution. The total above-ground carbon in biomass for vegetation in tropical Africa 2,687,000,000 MgC. The area of Mozambique was clipped to the “tropical region”. As the extent of the clipped area was not provided we use a land area of 78,638,000 ha [20]. The carbon fraction was 0.5. | The uncertainty range minimum was 2,676,000,000 MgC,with a maximum of 2,695,000,000 MgC. |
| Baccini et al., 2012 [11] | Study Area (Tier 3) | Based on GLAS and MODIS products with a 500 by 500 m resolution. AGBD was determined from the 463 m by 463 m pixel dat. The carbon fraction was 0.5. | Uncertainty estimates were not available at this scale. |
A summary of the datasets used in this study, further details are included in the supporting information.