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Carbon stocks in coffee agroforests and mixed dry tropical forests in the western highlands of Guatemala

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Abstract

Tree removal in Latin American coffee agroforestry systems has been widespread due to complex and interacting factors that include fluctuating international markets, government-supported agricultural policies, and climate change. Despite shade tree removal and land conversion risks, there is currently no widespread policy incentive encouraging the maintenance of shade trees for the benefit of carbon sequestration. In facilitation of such incentives, an understanding of the capacity of coffee agroforests to store carbon relative to tropical forests must be developed. Drawing on ecological inventories conducted in 2007 and 2010 in the Lake Atitlán region of Guatemala, this research examines the carbon pools of smallholder coffee agroforests (CAFs) as they compare to a mixed dry forest (MDF) system. Data from 61 plots, covering a total area of 2.24 ha, was used to assess the aboveground, coarse root, and soil carbon reservoirs of the two land-use systems. Results of this research demonstrate the total carbon stocks of CAFs to range from 74.0 to 259.0 Megagrams (Mg) C ha−1 with a mean of 127.6 ± 6.6 (SE) Mg C ha−¹. The average carbon stocks of CAFs was significantly lower than estimated for the MDF (198.7 ± 32.1 Mg C ha−1); however, individual tree and soil pools were not significantly different suggesting that agroforest shade trees play an important role in facilitating carbon sequestration and soil conservation. This research demonstrates the need for conservation-based initiatives which recognize the carbon sequestration benefits of coffee agroforests alongside natural forest systems.

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Notes

  1. There is no record of the exact number of smallholders in the study region. To our knowledge, all smallholders in the region grow coffee under shade trees, though the extent and magnitude of shade cover varies.

  2. Total area is an approximation based on aerial photographs and observations made during fieldwork.

  3. The ASTER image was distributed by the Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC), located at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center (lpdaac.usgs.gov).

  4. NDVI is the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, calculated as (NIR − VIS)/(NIR + VIS) where NIR and VIS stand for the spectral reflectance measurements acquired in the near-infrared and visible (red) regions, respectively. Values close to one indicate higher densities of ‘greenness’ than values close to zero (Mather 2004).

  5. Coffee tree density and the presence of low-lying coffee branches in the CAFs complicated the creation of circles, and without removing or breaking branches extensively, accurate plot boundaries were not easily attained.

  6. All values are presented as the mean ± 1 standard error.

  7. Carbon stock estimates by Ávila et al. (2001) include shade tree biomass, coffee tree biomass, and soil organic carbon from 0 to 25 cm depth. While soil sampling in our CAFs was less than that of Ávila et al. (2001), our average total carbon stocks are similar.

  8. Soil sampling depths in Indonesia, Togo, and Mexico equaled 30 cm (van Noordwijk et al. 2002), 40 cm (Dossa et al. 2008), and 30 cm (Soto-Pinto et al. 2010), respectively.

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded by the National Science Foundation’s Geography and Spatial Sciences Program (DDRI #0927491). Many thanks to the smallholder coffee growers in Guatemala who graciously allowed us to collect data on their land during harvesting season and to the community of Santa Clara for allowing access to their municipal park. We also thank Arturo Ujpán Mendoza at Ati’t Ala’ for his help collecting field data, Gabriela Alfaro at the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala for her help with data analysis, and Sarah Mincey at Indiana University for her comments and suggestions on the manuscript.

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  1. School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University, 408 N. Indiana Avenue, Bloomington, IN, 47408, USA

    Mikaela Schmitt-Harsh

  2. Department of Geography, Indiana University, 701 E. Kirkwood Ave., Student Building 102, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA

    Tom P. Evans

  3. Centro de Estudios Ambientales y de Biodiversidad, Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, 18 Avenida 11-95 Zona 15, Vista Hermosa III, 01015, Guatemala, Guatemala

    Edwin Castellanos

  4. School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University, 1315 East Tenth Street, SPEA 447, Bloomington, IN, 47408, USA

    J. C. Randolph

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  1. Mikaela Schmitt-Harsh
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Schmitt-Harsh, M., Evans, T.P., Castellanos, E. et al. Carbon stocks in coffee agroforests and mixed dry tropical forests in the western highlands of Guatemala. Agroforest Syst 86, 141–157 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10457-012-9549-x

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