Does land use matter? Carbon consequences of alternative land use futures in New England

Abstract

Globally, forests play an important role in climate change mitigation. However, land-use impacts the ability of forests to sequester and store carbon. Here we quantify the impacts of five divergent future land-use scenarios on aboveground forest carbon stocks and fluxes throughout New England. These scenarios, four co-designed with stakeholders from throughout the region and the fifth a continuation of recent trends in land use, were simulated by coupling a land cover change model with a mechanistic forest growth model to produce estimates of aboveground carbon over 50 years. Future carbon removed through harvesting and development was tracked using a standard carbon accounting methodology, modified to fit our modeling framework. Of the simulated changes in land use, changes in harvesting had the most profound and immediate impacts on carbon stocks and fluxes. In one of the future land-use scenarios including a rapid expansion of harvesting for biomass energy, this changed New England’s forests from a net carbon sink to a net carbon source in 2060. Also in these simulations, relatively small reductions in harvest intensities (e.g., 10% reduction), coupled with an increased percent of wood going into longer-term storage, led to substantial reductions in net carbon emissions (909 MMtCO2eq) as compared to a continuation of recent trends in land use. However, these projected gains in carbon storage and reduction in emissions from less intense harvesting regimes can only be realized if it is paired with a reduction in the consumption of the timber products, and their replacements, that otherwise would result in additional emissions from leakage and substitution.