Assessing the impacts of climate change and nitrogen deposition on Norway spruce (Picea abies L. Karst) growth in Austria with BIOME-BGC

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to determine whether a detectable impact of climate change is apparent in Austrian forests. In regions of complex terrain such as most of Austria, climatic trends over the past 50 years show marked geographic variability. As climate is one of the key drivers of forest growth, a comparison of growth characteristics between regions with different trends in temperature and precipitation can give insights into the impact of climatic change on forests. This study uses data from several hundred climate recording stations, interpolated to measurement sites of the Austrian National Forest Inventory (NFI). Austria as a whole shows a warming trend over the past 50 years and little overall change in precipitation. The warming trends, however, vary considerably across certain regions and regional precipitation trends vary widely in both directions, which cancel out on the national scale These differences allow the delineation of 'climatic change zones' with internally consistent climatic trends that differ from other zones. This study applies the species-specific adaptation of the biogeochemical model BIOME-BGC to Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst) across a range of Austrian climatic change zones, using input data from a number of national databases. The relative influence of extant climate change on forest growth is quantified, and compared with the far greater impact of non-climatic factors. At the national scale, climate change is found to have negligible effect on Norway spruce productivity, due in part to opposing effects at the regional level. The magnitudes of the modeled non-climatic influences on aboveground woody biomass increment increases are consistent with previously reported values of 20-40 kg of added stem carbon sequestration per kilogram of additional nitrogen deposition, while climate responses are of a magnitude difficult to detect in NFI data.

Modelling intra- and inter-annual growth dynamics of Scots pine in the whole-tree carbon balance framework

“…length growth must be considered. 5) Possible changes in forest nutrition, such as nitrogen deposition or mineralization (see Eastaugh et al (2011) for effects of increased nitrogen deposition), or structures that enhance or decrease growth and photosynthesis should be taken into account. Duran et al (2016) predicted decreasing nitrogen mineralization with climate change in cold areas, even though generally increased temperature actually enhances mineralization of nitrogen (Bagerzadeh et al 2008).…”

Modeling Italian forests: state of the art and future challenges

“…Process models have clear advantages over empirical models, allowing researchers to answer some of the most pressing questions in current plant ecological science, such as the amount of carbon fixed by a given community or landscape, or the response of tree performance to climatic fluctuations or atmospheric N depositions (e.g., Eastaugh et al 2011). Provided that appropriate data be available as input variables (see below), we suggest directing research towards understanding ecosystem response to exogenous disturbances.…”

“…The state-of-the-art in forest ecosystem modeling has been presented in several conferences (e.g., Fries 1974, Ek et al 1988, Burkhart et al 1989, Dixon et al 1990, Wensel & Biging 1990, Amaro & Tomé 1999, Rennols 2001, LeMay & Marshall 2003, Hasenauer & Mäkelä 2005, and much of the accumulated knowledge is summarized by textbooks (Dudek & Ek 1980, Dixon et al 1990, Solomon & Shugart 1993, Vanclay 1994, Mladenoff & Baker 1999, Von Gadow & Hui 2001, Thornley & Johnson 2002, Amaro et al 2003, Grimm & Railsback 2005, Hasenauer & Mäkelä 2005, Hasenauer 2006, Pretzsch et al 2006, Voinov et al 2008, Pretzsch 2009). The diversity in ecosystem processes has resulted in the development of an extraordinary array of different models in forest ecology and management.…”

Incorporating management history into forest growth modelling

“…Properly calibrated and validated, such models can also be used as diagnostic tools, to separate the influence of forest growth impactors such as climate change and Nitrogen deposition (Eastaugh et al 2011). Such models have however been sometimes criticised in the past for a poor representation of forest mass growth (Rennolls et al 2007, Pretzsch et al 2008).…”