TITLE:
Estimated Carbon Sequestration in a Temperate Forest in Idaho of USA
AUTHORS:
Zhaohua Dai, Richard A. Birdsey, Alexa J. Dugan
KEYWORDS:
Disturbances, Insects, Fire, Biomass, Forest-DNDC, Spatially-Explicit Modeling Approach, REDD
JOURNAL NAME:
Natural Science,
Vol.9 No.12,
December
29,
2017
ABSTRACT: Assessing carbon (C) sequestration in forest ecosystems is fundamental to supply information to monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) for reducing deforestation and forest degradation (REDD). The spatially-explicit version of Forest-DNDC (FDNDC) was evaluated using plot-based observations from Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest (NPCNF) in Idaho of United States and used to assess C stocks inabout 16,000 km2. The model evaluation indicated that the FDNDC can be used to assess C stocks with disturbances in this temperate forest with a proper model performance efficiency and small error between observations and simulations. Aboveground biomass in this forest was 85.1 Mg C ha-1 in 2010. The mean aboveground biomass in the forest increased by about 0.6 Mg C ha-1 yr-1 in the last 20 years from 1990 to 2010 with spatial mean stand age about 98 years old in 2010. Spatial differences in distributions of biomass, net primary production and net ecosystem product are substantial. The spatial divergence in C sequestration is mainly associated with the spatial disparities in stand age due to disturbances, secondly with ecological drivers and species. Climate variability and change can substantially impact C stocks in the forest based on the climatic variability of spatial climate data for a 33-year period from 1981 to 2013. Temperature rise can produce more biomass in NPCNF, but biomass cannot increase with an increase in precipitation in this forest. The simulation with disturbances using observations and estimates for the time period from 1991 to 2011showed the effects of disturbances on C stocks in forests. The impacts of fires and insects on C stocks in this forest are highly dependent on the severity, the higher, the more C loss to atmosphere due tofires, and the more dead woods produced by fires and insects. The rates of biomass increase with an increase in stand age are different among the species. The changes in forest C stocksin the forest are almost species specific, non-linear and complex. The increase in aboveground biomass with an increase in stand age can be described by a high-order polynomial.