Development of Forest Activity Data and Forest Management Rate for National Greenhouse Gas Inventory in the Forest Sector

After the Paris Agreement, the Republic of Korea also has own Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), and forest sector has to sequestrate 22 million tons of CO₂ eq. by 2030 and to develop a national inventory and Land‐Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF) system. However, forest activity data have been neglected in the assessment process, because they have been partially recorded from various data sources. Therefore, this study collects available data to represent forest activity data and integrates them considering spatial availability based on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines and approaches from the Kyoto Protocol. National and private spatial data were collected, and the available data as forest activity data were selected. Subsequently, forest management records on address‐based locations were converted to spatial data by spatial joining and overlying. As a result, around 1.25 million forest management and afforestation recodes are available. Based on these records, the estimated average forest management rate considering regional distribution is 31.2% during 2013‐2017, and the estimated forest management rate reflecting average values for missing management recodes is 43.1% during 2003‐2017. This study suggests a spatial approach to develop proper calculation of forest management rate despite differences in forest management rate caused by missing data from filed activities and limitation of spatial data during overlaying analysis. Therefore, more forest data are needed to secure the future development of a national forest inventory.