Forest sector carbon analyses support land management planning and projects: assessing the influence of anthropogenic and natural factors

Steele

Hollinger

et al. 2018

Self Cite

Forests and their products provide many benefits including clean water, recreation, wildlife habitat, wood products, energy, as well as carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation. This project assesses past and future carbon sequestration and mitigation potential across the forest sector of Pennsylvania with a focus on State Forest lands. This research resulted from a collaboration between the U.S. Forest Service and the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (PA DCNR).

Section: Baseline Stocks and Emissionssupporting

confidence: 78%

Section: Baseline Stocks and Emissionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Forest Ecosystemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Climate and Environmental Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Assessment of Forest Sector Carbon Stocks and Mitigation Potential for the State Forests of Pennsylvania

Steele

Hollinger

et al. 2018

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“…But considering only the historical baseline, the process model results based on a previous study [6] suggest that increasing atmospheric CO 2 , climate, and N deposition have had relatively significant effects on forest C in our study areas (Additional file 1: Figure S9). The impacts of different climate change scenarios may also influence the effectiveness and feasibility of mitigation activities.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

A systems approach to assess climate change mitigation options in landscapes of the United States forest sector

Birdsey

Mascorro³

et al. 2018

Carbon Balance Manage

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BackgroundUnited States forests can contribute to national strategies for greenhouse gas reductions. The objective of this work was to evaluate forest sector climate change mitigation scenarios from 2018 to 2050 by applying a systems-based approach that accounts for net emissions across four interdependent components: (1) forest ecosystem, (2) land-use change, (3) harvested wood products, and (4) substitution benefits from using wood products and bioenergy. We assessed a range of land management and harvested wood product scenarios for two case studies in the U.S: coastal South Carolina and Northern Wisconsin. We integrated forest inventory and remotely-sensed disturbance data within a modelling framework consisting of a growth-and-yield driven ecosystem carbon model; a harvested wood products model that estimates emissions from commodity production, use and post-consumer treatment; and displacement factors to estimate avoided fossil fuel emissions. We estimated biophysical mitigation potential by comparing net emissions from land management and harvested wood products scenarios with a baseline (‘business as usual’) scenario.ResultsBaseline scenario results showed that the strength of the ecosystem carbon sink has been decreasing in the two sites due to age-related productivity declines and deforestation. Mitigation activities have the potential to lessen or delay the further reduction in the carbon sink. Results of the mitigation analysis indicated that scenarios reducing net forest area loss were most effective in South Carolina, while extending harvest rotations and increasing longer-lived wood products were most effective in Wisconsin. Scenarios aimed at increasing bioenergy use either increased or reduced net emissions within the 32-year analysis timeframe.ConclusionsIt is critical to apply a systems approach to comprehensively assess net emissions from forest sector climate change mitigation scenarios. Although some scenarios produced a benefit by displacing emissions from fossil fuel energy or by substituting wood products for other materials, these benefits can be outweighed by increased carbon emissions in the forest or product systems. Maintaining forests as forests, extending rotations, and shifting commodities to longer-lived products had the strongest mitigation benefits over several decades. Carbon cycle impacts of bioenergy depend on timeframe, feedstocks, and alternative uses of biomass, and cannot be assumed carbon neutral.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s13021-018-0100-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Opportunities for forest sector emissions reductions: a state‐level analysis

Ecological Applications

Lichstein

Steele

et al. 2021

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The forest sector can play a significant role in climate change mitigation. We evaluated forest sector carbon trends and potential mitigation scenarios in Vermont using a systems‐based modeling framework that accounts for net emissions from all forest sector components. These components comprise (1) the forest ecosystem, including land‐use change, (2) harvested wood products (HWP), and (3) substitution effects associated with using renewable wood‐based products and fuels in place of more emission‐intensive materials and fossil fuel‐based energy. We assessed baseline carbon trends from 1995 through 2050 using a business as usual (BAU) scenario. Emission reductions associated with different forest management and HWP scenarios were evaluated relative to the BAU scenario from 2020 to 2050. We estimated uncertainty for each forest sector component and used a Monte Carlo approach to estimate the distribution of cumulative total mitigation for each scenario relative to baseline. Our analysis indicates that the strength of the forest sector carbon sink in Vermont has been declining and will continue to decline over coming decades under the BAU scenario. However, several scenarios evaluated here could be effective in reducing emissions and enhancing carbon uptake. Shifting HWP to longer‐lived commodities resulted in a 14% reduction in net cumulative emissions by 2050, the largest reduction of all scenarios. A scenario that combined extending harvest rotations, utilizing additional harvest residues for bioenergy, and increasing forest productivity resulted in a 12% reduction in net cumulative emissions. Shifting commodities from pulp and paper to bioenergy showed a 7.3% reduction in emissions. In contrast, shortening rotations to increase harvests for bioenergy use resulted in a 5.5% increase in emissions. In summary, model simulations suggest that net emissions could be reduced by up to 14% relative to BAU, depending on the management and HWP‐use scenario. Combining multiple scenarios could further enhance reductions. However, realizing the full climate mitigation potential of these forests may be challenging due to socioeconomic barriers to implementation, as well as alternative management objectives that must be considered along with carbon sequestration.