Ecologists Report Huge Storm Losses in China's Forests

Stone, Richard

doi:10.1126/science.319.5868.1318

Cited by 49 publications

(35 citation statements)

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“…Figure 8 depicts a significant increase of AGB in 2008, which was likely to be the result of a VCT error in that time period associated with clouds providing a false-positive change detection [73]. Stone (2008) estimated that freezing rain and snow disasters in 2008 caused the loss of one-tenth of China's forests and plantations, which was roughly equivalent to the number of hectares that were reforested between 2003 and 2006, according to China's State Forestry Administration [86]. This highlights the importance of deriving spatially explicit maps of AGB dynamics within disturbed regions, because of the regional conditions of forest and disturbance.…”

Section: Forest Agb and Forest Disturbance Dynamics Changementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The increasing temperature enhanced forest growth and the decreasing precipitation reduced the water erosion of rock desertification, slowing down the desertification speed [75], leading to an annual AGB increase. Also, extreme low temperature especially in 2008 affected vegetation growth [86]. In the past 30 years, the area of rocky desertified land has begun to decrease (Figure 10), over-cultivation, over-cutting and over-grazing have gradually decreased or were banned completely under the guidance of national environmental and ecological policies.…”

Section: Quantification and Qualitative Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

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Quantifying Live Aboveground Biomass and Forest Disturbance of Mountainous Natural and Plantation Forests in Northern Guangdong, China, Based on Multi-Temporal Landsat, PALSAR and Field Plot Data

Shen

Huang

et al. 2016

Remote Sensing

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Spatially explicit knowledge of aboveground biomass (AGB) in large areas is important for accurate carbon accounting and quantifying the effect of forest disturbance on the terrestrial carbon cycle. We estimated AGB from 1990 to 2011 in northern Guangdong, China, based on a spatially explicit dataset derived from six years of national forest inventory (NFI) plots, Landsat time series imagery and Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) Phased Array L-band Synthetic Aperture Radars (PALSAR) 25 m mosaic data (2007)(2008)(2009)(2010). Four types of variables were derived for modeling and assessment. The random forest approach was used to seek the optimal variables for mapping and validation. The root mean square error (RMSE) of plot-level validation was between 6.44 and 39.49 (t/ha), the normalized root-mean-square error (NRMSE) was between 7.49% and 19.01% and mean absolute error (MAE) was between 5.06 and 23.84 t/ha. The highest coefficient of determination R 2 of 0.8 and the lowest NRMSE of 7.49% were reported in 2006. A clear increasing trend of mean AGB from the lowest value of 13.58 t/ha to the highest value of 66.25 t/ha was witnessed between 1988 and 2000, while after 2000 there was a fluctuating ascending change, with a peak mean AGB of 67.13 t/ha in 2004. By integrating AGB change with forest disturbance, the trend in disturbance area closely corresponded with the trend in AGB decrease. To determine the driving forces of these changes, the correlation analysis was adopted and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) method was used to find a factor rotation that maximizes this variance and represents the dominant factors of nine climate elements and nine human activities elements affecting the AGB dynamics. Overall, human activities contributed more to short-term AGB dynamics than climate data. Harvesting and human-induced fire in combination with rock desertification and global warming made a strong contribution to AGB changes. This study provides valuable information for the relationships between forest AGB and climate as well as forest disturbance in subtropical zones.

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Section: Forest Agb and Forest Disturbance Dynamics Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Quantification and Qualitative Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying Live Aboveground Biomass and Forest Disturbance of Mountainous Natural and Plantation Forests in Northern Guangdong, China, Based on Multi-Temporal Landsat, PALSAR and Field Plot Data

Shen

Huang

et al. 2016

Remote Sensing

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“…The 2008 Chinese ice storm (Stone 2008) struck the most populated and economically developed region of China (the south-central region) and was more damaging than the 1998 North American ice storm. Its individual episodes occurred for nearly a month (10 January-6 February).…”

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confidence: 99%

The Great 2008 Chinese Ice Storm: Its Socioeconomic–Ecological Impact and Sustainability Lessons Learned

Zhou

Ding

et al. 2011

Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc.

211

163

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“…After the first three or five years, infrequent and poor maintenance practiced in most plantations contributed to their low grades in health conditions. Another factor is the common practice of using fast-growing monoculture in plantations which makes them more vulnerable to biotic and abiotic stresses than natural forests [45,46]. Plantations in Inner Mongolia and Ningxia were graded low in health conditions.…”

Section: Health Status and Ecological Functions Of Forests In Chinamentioning

confidence: 99%

China’s National Monitoring Program on Ecological Functions of Forests: An Analysis of the Protocol and Initial Results

Yang

Dai

Wang

2015

Forests

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Information on the ecological functions of forests is important for sustainable forest management. In this study, we introduced the national monitoring program which has been used in China to evaluate the overall health status and ecological functions of forests. We also compared it to similar monitoring programs operating in Europe and the United States of America. We revealed the strength and drawbacks of China's monitoring program by analyzing the initial evaluation results. Our analysis showed that among the three programs, the European program gives the most detailed measurements of conditions of forests while the U.S. program generates the most detailed information on individual trees. In comparison, China's monitoring program has a higher spatial resolution but is narrowly focused on trees and uses coarse classifications of indicators. The health status of forests in China suggested that more resources should be invested to improve the health of existing forests, especially plantations. The limitations in China's monitoring program need to be addressed to improve the accuracy of future assessments.

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Ecologists Report Huge Storm Losses in China's Forests

Cited by 49 publications

References 0 publications

Quantifying Live Aboveground Biomass and Forest Disturbance of Mountainous Natural and Plantation Forests in Northern Guangdong, China, Based on Multi-Temporal Landsat, PALSAR and Field Plot Data

Quantifying Live Aboveground Biomass and Forest Disturbance of Mountainous Natural and Plantation Forests in Northern Guangdong, China, Based on Multi-Temporal Landsat, PALSAR and Field Plot Data

The Great 2008 Chinese Ice Storm: Its Socioeconomic–Ecological Impact and Sustainability Lessons Learned

China’s National Monitoring Program on Ecological Functions of Forests: An Analysis of the Protocol and Initial Results

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