Estimating carbon storage and CO₂ absorption by developing allometric equations for Quercus acuta in South Korea

Abstract

This study was conducted to estimate C storage and CO 2 absorption by developing allometric equations for Quercus acuta in South Korea. Carbon content and CO 2 absorption were estimated according to climate change using data such as volume, stem density, and biomass expansion factor (BEF). Three kinds of BEFs were applied for this calculation: the national factor (NF, 1.22); the factor in this study (1.3275); and the biomass expansion regression equation (BRE) in this study. BRE among BEFs was developed to calculate BEF related to diameter at breast height (DBH) because BEF had a significantly positive relationship with DBH; the bigger DBH grew, the higher BEF increased. When applying the NF, C content and CO 2 absorption were the lowest as 64.0455 t C ha ¡1 and 234.6840 t CO 2 ha ¡1 , respectively; whereas these were 69.6865 t C ha ¡1 and 255.5165 t CO 2 ha ¡1 for the factor in this study. The highest values of C content and CO 2 absorption were shown as 74.9280 t C ha ¡1 and 274.7365 t CO 2 ha ¡1 when using the BRE. Carbon content prediction equations were also developed using these BEFs. Thus, BRE is suitable for developing an allometric equation for C content prediction with the greatest R 2 adjusted of 0.9815.

DBH growth for three years after thinning on even-agedPinus koraiensisandLarix kaempferiplantations in South Korea

“…As thinning effects on stand or individual trees take a long time to occur, much work has been conducted on stand or tree responses to thinning intensities by establishing permanent plots and repeating periodic measurements (Makinen and Isomaki 2004a, 2004b, 2004cPfister et al 2007;Cao et al 2008Cao et al , 2010Nishizono et al 2008;Pelletier and Pitt 2008;Wallentin and Nilsson 2011). While studies on biomass and carbon storage or tree growth were recently done (Ewane et al 2016;Kim et al 2016a;Kim and Lee 2017;Lee et al 2017), few studies have been done on thinning intensities by establishing permanent plots and repeating periodic measurements in South Korea. Choi et al (2014) conducted growth changes of DBH, height, crown width, volume, stem biomass, and dead trees after thinning with different thinning intensities for a Korean white pine (Pinus koraiensis) plantation.…”