Estimates of carbon stored in harvested wood products from the United States forest service northern region, 1906-2010

Abstract

BackgroundGlobal forests capture and store significant amounts of CO2 through photosynthesis. When carbon is removed from forests through harvest, a portion of the harvested carbon is stored in wood products, often for many decades. The United States Forest Service (USFS) and other agencies are interested in accurately accounting for carbon flux associated with harvested wood products (HWP) to meet greenhouse gas monitoring commitments and climate change adaptation and mitigation objectives. This paper uses the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) production accounting approach and the California Forest Project Protocol (CFPP) to estimate HWP carbon storage from 1906 to 2010 for the USFS Northern Region, which includes forests in northern Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, and eastern Washington.ResultsBased on the IPCC approach, carbon stocks in the HWP pool were increasing at one million megagrams of carbon (MgC) per year in the mid 1960s, with peak cumulative storage of 28 million MgC occurring in 1995. Net positive flux into the HWP pool over this period is primarily attributable to high harvest levels in the mid twentieth century. Harvest levels declined after 1970, resulting in less carbon entering the HWP pool. Since 1995, emissions from HWP at solid waste disposal sites have exceeded additions from harvesting, resulting in a decline in the total amount of carbon stored in the HWP pool. The CFPP approach shows a similar trend, with 100-year average carbon storage for each annual Northern Region harvest peaking in 1969 at 937,900 MgC, and fluctuating between 84,000 and 150,000 MgC over the last decade.ConclusionsThe Northern Region HWP pool is now in a period of negative net annual stock change because the decay of products harvested between 1906 and 2010 exceeds additions of carbon to the HWP pool through harvest. However, total forest carbon includes both HWP and ecosystem carbon, which may have increased over the study period. Though our emphasis is on the Northern Region, we provide a framework by which the IPCC and CFPP methods can be applied broadly at sub-national scales to other regions, land management units, or firms.

A Rethinking of the Production Approach in IPCC: Its Objectiveness in China

“…Additional country-specific models were developed, such as the BC-HWPv1 (British Colombia Harvested Wood Products, Version 1) [40], HWP-CASE (Comprehensive Assessment of Carbon Stock and Emission for Canadian Harvested Wood Products) [41], and CBM-CFS3 v.1.2 (Carbon Budget Model of the Canadian Forest Sector, Version 1.2) models [42], which focus on the carbon fluxes [43][44][45][46] in detailed socioeconomic activities [47,48].…”

Meeting GHG reduction targets requires accounting for all forest sector emissions

“…org/ERL/14/095005/mmedia). If US states intend to use forests for mitigation strategies, they must account for all contributing sources and sinks of forests and forest-derived products (Stockmann et al 2012, IPCC 2014.…”

Cumulative Carbon Fluxes Due to Selective Logging in Southeast Asia

“…Carbon fluxes in each wood component above at every time step are estimated by first order decay function followed Grier [20]. This method was also recently used by Stockmann et al [3] to estimate carbon storage in harvested woodproducts from the United States forest service northern region. Carbon remaining in any wood component created by selective logging at any time carbon is obtained by:…”

“…Wood products are important sources for housing and economic development in Southeast Asia. Between 2015 and 2050 of the modeling timeframe, logging produced about (±for standard error) 0.83 (±0.01) m 3 •ha −1 , declining about −0.57% year −1 . This decline was due to overexploitation and logging damages (harvested wood and logging damages are greater than mean annual increment).…”

“…Accounting for carbon storage in HWPs has brought more attention because of the need for reporting sources of remissions or removals to the United National Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Stockmann et al [3] analyzed carbon storage in HWPs in the Northern region of the United States of America and found that forest management in this region alone created carbon storage in HWPs of about 25.5 TgC in 2010 increasing from just 0.3 TgC in 1910. For the whole USA, annual carbon fluxes in HWPs were estimated at 37 TgC year −1 [4].…”