Carbon Budgeting

This practical class needs to be completed as part of your portfolio for practising physical geographies GEO1033. You need to submit a completed work sheet and a completed excel file.

The date for submission is 02/05/2014

60% of the marks will be awarded for correct completion of the calculations (Questions 1-13), 40% will be awarded for the last question (Question 14)

Introduction

A carbon budget is the balance between the amount of carbon taken up, stored and released by a tree. Trees, obviously, take more carbon out of the atmosphere than they release until they reach maturity or are cut down. We can calculate how much carbon a tree takes up by measuring the amount of carbon stored in the tree.

We can calculate the amount of carbon stored in a tree using a simple triangulation method, this is summarised in figures 1-3.
Figure 1. Calculating tree height on flat groundFigure 2. Calculating tree height downslope

Figure 3. Calculating tree height upslope
Methods recap
During the practical class you measured:-
Distance to the tree,A (m)
Height of the person taking the angle measurements, H (m)
Angle to the top of the tree, X (°)
Angle to the height of the person measured on the tree, Y (°)
Girth of the tree (m)
Area in which you measured all the trees (m2)

Calculating carbon budgets
During this practical class you are going to calculate how much carbon is stored in Ruff Wood. You need to complete each question as part of your assignment.

Type up your data into the blank excel sheet on Blackboard. You should not change any of the columns or insert new columns at this stage.

To use the built-in trigonometry features in excel all of the angles must be converted into radians. In columns H and I convert your angle to the top of the tree (column B) and angle to tree base (column C) to radians using the formulas:-
=radians(angle to top of the tree)
=radians(angle to tree base)

From Figure 2 and Figure 3 you are going to calculate the height O2. Rearrange this equation to allow you to find O2
SinY=O2/A
Write the rearranged equation in the space below using Microsoft Words built in equation editor. (Hint:-Insert, Equation)

Using the equation you have just rearranged, in column J calculate O2

From Figure 2 and Figure 3 you now need to calculate Z. Rearrange the following equation and type this equation below using the built in equation editor
CosY=Z/A

Using your rearranged equation, in column K solve it to find Z

From Figure 2 and Figure 3 you now need to calculate O1. Rearrange the following equation using the built in equation editor
TanX=O1/Z

Using your rearranged equation, in column L, solve it to find O1

Finally, in column M, You can calculate the tree height using the following equation:-
Tree Height=O1±O2+H
Whether your equation isTree Height=O1+O2+H, orTree Height=O1-O2+H, will depend on whether you have measured upslope or downslope.

We are now going to calculate the total volume of each tree trunk. To do this we are going to use the volume of a cone. The equation for the volume of a cone is:-
Volume of a cone= 1/3×p×r^2×Tree Height
Where:- p is Pi (in excel the equation is =Pi())
ris radius of the tree trunk
You have measured the girth (or circumference) of the tree trunk. What is the equation to calculate radius from the circumference? Type this equation below using the equation editor. (Hint: you are probably connected to the internet). In column N calculate the radius of your tree trunks.

In column O calculate the volume of all your tree trunks using the equation for the volume of a cone.

Next we need to calculate the weight of each tree. We can do this by multiplying the volume of a tree by the density of the tree. For an evergreen tree the density of the tree is 665.7kgm-3for a deciduous tree the density is 740kgm-3. In column P specify the density of each of your trees

In column Q, you can now calculate the weight of each tree. What is the weight of your heaviest and lightest tree? You should record these values in the space below

When we are carbon budgeting trees we assume that 50% of each tree is carbon. In column R calculate the amount of carbon for each tree. How much carbon is stored in your tallest tree?
To calculate the carbon budget for an area we need a value that is comparable to another area. For forests the unit is KgCm-2¬ or kilograms carbon per meter squared. Or the amount of carbon that is stored in one, one meter by on meter square. To find this value for your site you need to calculate the total amount of carbon for all your trees and divide this by your area. Perform the calculations in excel and record the result in the space below.
Using the value you have calculated in Q12 for the amount of carbon stored per m-2 we can calculate the total amount of carbon stored in Ruff Wood. The total area of Ruff Wood is 76,890m2. Record your results below including your calculations
One of the things that we can use statistics for is to monitor the quality of our data. In Minitab Ver15, you can perform descriptive statistics for your data, and test whether the data is normally distributed. You should record the statistical output of the test below including any hypotheses, and interpret and comment upon the results of all your calculations. (Hints:- you should think about whether you would expect your data to be normally distributed, if it is not, why not, if it is what does this mean? What is the range of your data? What can this tell you about Ruff Wood? How does Ruff Wood compare to other woods? You could critique the methods used here by using other academic literature)

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