Present and future scenarios for carbon sequestration and storage in continental Portugal

Among the main goals for the climate change, defined in the International protocols, are: i) to maintain of the global average rise of the temperature bellow 2º C, and ii) to reduce the Greenhouse Gases (GHG). The carbon dioxide (CO2) is the biggest responsible for GHG effect. Aiming at mitigating the CO2 emissions, the Portuguese government, under the international directives, has created plans and strategies. Some of this plans and strategies directly impact the Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) Management and they also directly influence the Ecosystems Services (ES) regardless of their nature. Carbon sequestration and storage for the LULC constitutes one of the ES and it brings important benefits for the accomplishment of the 2030 national goals, at an environmental level. Against this background, this project intends to evaluate the LULC management over carbon sequestration and storage performance, in a future perspective, using scenarios approaches combined with GIS tools. The intervention scenarios in the High case scenario show that policies effect over the ES produces 8% more than current policies and the Low case scenario produces 1%. The Business-as-Usual approach results indicate that the current policies performance over a future perspective may be responsible for the production of 5%. However, according the LULC trade-offs, current policies may reveal a loss of carbon sequestration and storage capacity over the territory, while in the intervention scenarios there is no loss evidence. This analysis allows us to conclude that the policies improvement may create conditions for a suitable LULC management, particularly in the carbon sequestration and storage, rather than the current framework of the policies.