Assessment of Mangrove Carbon Stocks in Cameroon, Gabon, the Republic of Congo (RoC) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Including their Potential for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) - The Land/Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone of West and Central Africa - page 178

Table 3 Structural characteristics of mangroves in Central African

Mean
diameter
(cm)

Basal
area (m 2 /
ha)

Belowground
biomass (Mg/
ha)

Dead
woods
(Mg/ha)

Total
biomass
(Mg/ha)

Country Tree density

(Nr trees/ha)

Max
height
(m)

Stand
volume
(m 3 /ha)

Aboveground
biomass (Mg/
ha)

Cameroon 3,256 52.1 4.6 25.1 427.5 505 306 15 825

Gabon 1,467 41 9.5 24.5 288.9 341 151 21 512

RoC 1,667 25.2 7.7 18.8 213 251 122 20 394

DRC 1,267 27 9.1 24.5 346.9 409 185 69 663

All stems with DBH [ 1.0 cm inside PSPs plots were measured
Extract of calculation from Ajonina ( 2008 ) as follows
AGB = BEF ABG * stand volume
BEF = 1.18, BGB = BEF BGB eqn * trunk volume = (1.385 * Diam -0.4331 ) * trunk volume

Where BEF BGB Equation = (1.385 * Diam -0.4331 )

Cameroon - Pristine Gabon - Pristine Congo - Pristine DRC - Pristine

3000 3000 3000

3000

2500 2500 2500

2500

2000 2000 2000

2000

1500 1500

1500

1500

1000 1000

1000

1000

500

500

500

500

0 0

0

0

Cameroon - Degraded Gabon - Degraded Congo - Degraded DRC - Degraded

2500 2500

2500 2500

2000

2000

2000 2000

1500

1500

1500 1500

1000

1000 1000 1000

500

500 500 500

0

0 0 0

Diamater class

Diameter class

Diamter class Diamter class

Fig. 4 Stem class distributions in Central mangrove forest

Carbon stocks

(967 ± 58 Mg/ha; Table 4 ). This was followed by heavily
and moderately exploited sites that recorded an average
SOC of 774 ± 163 and 741 ± 190 Mg/ha, respectively.
The results are in conformity with high content of organic
carbon that is associated with mangrove sediments (Donato
et al. 2011 , found an average of 864 Mg/ha in the Indo-
Pacific; Adame et al. 2013 , found up to 1,166 Mg/ha in the
Mexican Caribbean). Alluvial deposition from multiple
rivers flowing through the mangroves into the Atlantic

Soil Organic Carbon
There was high variability in the concentration of soil
organic carbon (p \ 0.05) with undisturbed sites showing
higher carbon concentrations than exploited forests. Across
the region, the average quantity of soil organic carbon
amounted to 827 ± 170 Mg/ha. The undisturbed stands
recorded the highest amount of mean soil organic carbon