Applying continuous-cover forestry on drained boreal peatlands; water regulation, biodiversity, climate benefits and remaining uncertainties

Laudon, Hjalmar; Hasselquist, Eliza Maher

doi:10.1016/j.tfp.2022.100363

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 92 publications

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“…It is notable that peat soils are not only found in forested and open wetlands but also in the riparian zones lining most streams. The proportion of C stored in trees in these wet areas is substantially lower than in other forested regions, so less common management practices such as continuous-cover forestry may be preferable to ensure the preservation of these large SOC stocks 51 . More generally, the presence of large SOC stocks in riparian zones suggests a need for greater caution in forest management when dealing with such near-stream areas 52 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil moisture controls the partitioning of carbon stocks across a managed boreal forest landscape

Larson,

Wallerman,

Peichl

et al. 2023

Sci Rep

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Boreal forests sequester and store vast carbon (C) pools that may be subject to significant feedback effects induced by climatic warming. The boreal landscape consists of a mosaic of forests and peatlands with wide variation in total C stocks, making it important to understand the factors controlling C pool sizes in different ecosystems. We therefore quantified the total C stocks in the organic layer, mineral soil, and tree biomass in 430 plots across a 68 km2 boreal catchment. The organic layer held the largest C pool, accounting for 39% of the total C storage; tree and mineral C pools accounted for 38% and 23%, respectively. The size of the soil C pool was positively related to modelled soil moisture conditions, especially in the organic soil layer (R2 = 0.50). Conversely, the tree C pool exhibited a unimodal relationship: storage was highest under intermediate wetness conditions. The magnitude and variation in the total soil C stocks observed in this work were comparable to those found at the national level in Sweden, suggesting that C accumulation in boreal landscapes is more sensitive to local variation resulting primarily from differences in soil moisture conditions than to regional differences in climate, nitrogen deposition, and parent material.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil moisture controls the partitioning of carbon stocks across a managed boreal forest landscape

Larson,

Wallerman,

Peichl

et al. 2023

Sci Rep

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“…The seasonal coupling and decoupling of hydric sites to and from upland sources have implications for the introduction of continuous-cover forestry as a forest soil management strategy in northern settings. In continuous-cover forestry, only a certain proportion of the trees are harvested in order to keep the transpiration of remaining trees sufficiently high, preventing soil waterlogging during the growing season and thus eliminating the need for the maintenance of drainage networks [9,10]. It can be speculated that, in hydric sites that become decoupled from water-source areas during the growing season, the effects of continuous-cover forestry would be much stronger than in other cases where such decoupling does not take place.…”

Section: Implications Of the Hydrological Coupling/decouplingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, drainage renovation is costly and can have negative environmental consequences such as habitat disturbance, increased sediment and nutrient run-off and spikes in greenhouse gas emissions from soils [9]. In recent decades in Scandinavia, continuous-cover forestry, by harvesting only some of the trees, has been proposed as an alternative more environmentally friendly forest soil water management strategy [9,10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hydrological Coupling and Decoupling of Hydric Hemiboreal Forest Sites Inferred from Soil Water Models and Tree-Ring Chronology

Kalvāns,

Dauškane

2023

Forests

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The soil water regime often controls whether an ecosystem is a source of greenhouse gases such as CO2 or CH4 or is, instead, a carbon sink. The soil water regime of wetland forests is complicated by ecosystem feedback and landscape scale interactions. An in-depth understanding of these processes is needed to optimize the management of such ecosystems to balance timber production, carbon sequestration and biodiversity preservation. To investigate the soil water regime of non-riparian wetland forests, we set up a physically based Hydrus-1D soil water model for two hydric black alder Alnus glutinosa sites in a lowland hemiboreal setting informed by field observations of the soil water. Further, to gain ecohydrological insights, we explored the correlations between modeled long-term soil water parameters and local dendrochronology. We found that, at the clay soil site, the simulated root water uptake had a significant correlation (up to 0.55) with the residual tree-ring chronology. However, in the sandy soil site, the meteorological conditions—air temperature and precipitation—were better predictors for tree radial growth (correlation up to 0.42). In addition, we observed a trend towards dryer conditions during the modeling period, which might enhance the growing conditions for the considered forest stands due to a reduction in soil waterlogging.

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“…While that study combined chamber measurements of soil fluxes during the snow‐free season with tree production estimates, year‐round and direct measurements of the ecosystem‐scale C balance using the eddy covariance (EC) technique (Baldocchi, 2003) are lacking for peatland forests in the more nutrient‐poor middle and northern boreal regions. Given large gradients in soil fertility (Callesen et al., 2007), hydrology (Laudon & Hasselquist, 2023) and climatic conditions across Fennoscandia, a comprehensive database is critical for a better understanding of how these key factors regulate the C balance of drained peatland forests across the boreal biome.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A drained nutrient‐poor peatland forest in boreal Sweden constitutes a net carbon sink after integrating terrestrial and aquatic fluxes

Tong,

Noumonvi,

Ratcliffe

et al. 2024

Global Change Biology

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Northern peatlands provide a globally important carbon (C) store. Since the beginning of the 20th century, however, large areas of natural peatlands have been drained for biomass production across Fennoscandia. Today, drained peatland forests constitute a common feature of the managed boreal landscape, yet their ecosystem C balance and associated climate impact are not well understood, particularly within the nutrient‐poor boreal region. In this study, we estimated the net ecosystem carbon balance (NECB) from a nutrient‐poor drained peatland forest and an adjacent natural mire in northern Sweden by integrating terrestrial carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) fluxes with aquatic losses of dissolved organic C (DOC) and inorganic C based on eddy covariance and stream discharge measurements, respectively, over two hydrological years. Since the forest included a dense spruce‐birch area and a sparse pine area, we were able to further evaluate the effect of contrasting forest structure on the NECB and component fluxes. We found that the drained peatland forest was a net C sink with a 2‐year mean NECB of −115 ± 5 g C m−2 year−1 while the adjacent mire was close to C neutral with 14.6 ± 1.7 g C m−2 year−1. The NECB of the drained peatland forest was dominated by the net CO2 exchange (net ecosystem exchange [NEE]), whereas NEE and DOC export fluxes contributed equally to the mire NECB. We further found that the C sink strength in the sparse pine forest area (−153 ± 8 g C m−2 year−1) was about 1.5 times as high as in the dense spruce‐birch forest area (−95 ± 8 g C m−2 year−1) due to enhanced C uptake by ground vegetation and lower DOC export. Our study suggests that historically drained peatland forests in nutrient‐poor boreal regions may provide a significant net ecosystem C sink and associated climate benefits.

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Applying continuous-cover forestry on drained boreal peatlands; water regulation, biodiversity, climate benefits and remaining uncertainties

Cited by 8 publications

References 92 publications

Soil moisture controls the partitioning of carbon stocks across a managed boreal forest landscape

Soil moisture controls the partitioning of carbon stocks across a managed boreal forest landscape

Hydrological Coupling and Decoupling of Hydric Hemiboreal Forest Sites Inferred from Soil Water Models and Tree-Ring Chronology

A drained nutrient‐poor peatland forest in boreal Sweden constitutes a net carbon sink after integrating terrestrial and aquatic fluxes

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