Journal of Food, Agriculture and Environment

Past, present and future forest resources in China and the implications for carbon sequestration dynamics 

Author(s):

Bing Wang ^{1, 2}, Dan Wang ^{1, 2}*, Xiang Niu ^1,2

Recieved Date: 2012-09-28, Accepted Date: 2013-01-20

Abstract:

With the threat of projected climate change, estimating the changes in carbon sequestration is important to enhancing sinks for carbon sequestration to mitigate the climate change. Here, we used a field measurement data of biomass and soil carbon sequestration and a 15-year national forest resource inventory data in China to estimate changes in the carbon storage of biomass and soil between 1994 and 2008. Our results suggested that in the past when the nation was forested by 16.6% the carbon sequestration would have been approximately 263.5 Tg C yr^-1. By 1999 forest cover had been increased by 1.6%, and in addition many forests had been planted resulting in a large increase in the total carbon sequestration. From 1994 to 2003, the mean plantation rate was 0.7 M ha yr^-1, and by 2008 total carbon sequestration had been increased to 358.7 Tg C yr^-1. During the next 40 years, if plantations only expand by presently annual growth, the carbon sequestration of China will increase to 392.4 Tg C yr^-1 in 2050. This would reflect a rise of 33.7 Tg C yr^-1 between 2008 and 2050, or an annual rise of 0.8 Tg C yr^-1, suggesting that carbon sequestration through forest management practices could help offset industrial carbon dioxide emissions. Alternatively, if plantations expand according to the projected forest area, carbon sequestration of the nation would increase to 445.0 Tg C yr^-1 in 2050. Under this scenario, the growth of existing forests and the expansion of new forests would result in a net sequestration of 2.05 Tg C yr^-1. This study demonstrated that the uncertainty of biomass estimates can be greatly reduced if detailed field measurement analyses were combined with forest inventory data, and slight changes in future forest resource practices could have large implications for carbon fluxes.

Keywords:

Carbon sequestration, China, forest resource, spatial distribution, temporal distribution, future scenarios

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Journal: Journal of Food, Agriculture and Environment
Year: 2013
Volume: 11
Issue: 1
Category: Environment
Pages: 801-806

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