Using Silviculture to Influence Carbon Sequestration in Southern Appalachian Spruce-Fir Forests

Moore, Patrick; DeRose, R. Justin; Long, James N.; Miegroet, Helga Van

doi:10.3390/f3020300

Cited by 23 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 39 publications

(62 reference statements)

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“…Since the function of forests as carbon sinks and sources is commonly accepted, there exist a plentitude of studies about forests and their role in the carbon cycle on a worldwide or continental level [13,14] and for managed [15,16] and unmanaged forests [17]. Furthermore, several studies on a regional [18][19][20][21] or national level [7,22] which include all climate change mitigation effects (often excluding soil carbon) are available as well as many experimental studies on a stand level [23,24]. However, the latter only partially contains the wood product sector and substitution effects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Contribution of Managed and Unmanaged Forests to Climate Change Mitigation—A Model Approach at Stand Level for the Main Tree Species in Bavaria

Klein

Höllerl

Blaschke

et al. 2013

Forests

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Forestry-based carbon sequestration projects demand a comprehensive quantification of the different climate change mitigation effects. In our study, we modeled a life cycle of managed pure stands consisting of the four main tree species in Bavaria (spruce, pine, beech and oak). For spruce and beech, an unmanaged stand was additionally integrated in order to analyze the differences in climate change mitigation effects compared to the managed stands. We developed a climate change mitigation model, where stand development and silvicultural treatments including harvested timber volumes were conducted using the tree growth model Silva 2.3. The harvested wood products (HWP), including their substitution effects were calculated with a subsequent model. For unmanaged beech forests, we compiled measured data from the literature, and Bavarian strict forest reserves for validating our model results. The results for the managed stands reveal that spruce provides the highest total climate change mitigation effects. After a simulation period of 180 years, one hectare leads to a mean mitigation benefit of 13.5 Mg CO 2 ha −1 year −1. In comparison, results for pine, beech and oak reveal lesser benefits with 10.1 Mg CO 2 ha −1 year −1 , 9.1 Mg CO 2 ha −1 year −1 and 7.2 Mg CO 2 ha −1 year −1 , respectively. However, these results assume current growing conditions. Considering climate change, it is very likely that spruce will not be suitable in several regions of Bavaria in the future. Furthermore, excessive disturbances could affect spruce more drastically than OPEN ACCESS Forests 2013, 4 44 the other tree species. In that case, the order could change and beech could exceed spruce. Thus the results cannot be seen as a general recommendation to establish spruce stands in order to achieve optimal climate change mitigation benefits. Nevertheless, results for spruce illustrate that high increment and especially wood use in long-lived products is crucial for high climate change mitigation effects. Mitigation effects in unmanaged spruce and beech stands do not differ in the first decades from their managed counterparts, but are below them in the long term with a total climate change mitigation benefit of 8.0 Mg CO 2 ha −1 year −1 and 7.2 Mg CO 2 ha −1 year −1 , respectively. These differences are mainly caused by the missing substitution effects in the unmanaged stands. However, the precise dimensions of substitution effects still remain uncertain and the lack of data should be reduced via additional life cycle assessments for more products and product classes. However, neglecting substitution effects in climate change mitigation models leads to severe underestimations of the mitigation effects in managed forests.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Contribution of Managed and Unmanaged Forests to Climate Change Mitigation—A Model Approach at Stand Level for the Main Tree Species in Bavaria

Klein

Höllerl

Blaschke

et al. 2013

Forests

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“…These contradictions may be due to the complexity of the calculations, as acknowledged by Moore et al. (), who emphasized that the accuracy of their results depended upon several factors, including the forest products that were generated. Nunery and Keeton () even showed that the comparison between even‐ and uneven‐aged silviculture is influenced by the level of structural retention applied in the treatments and also differs if carbon storage is considered instead of carbon sequestration.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, two of the studies examined the total amount of carbon in the ecosystem very shortly after harvesting (Lee, Morrison, Leblanc, Dumas, & Cameron, ) instead of considering it over a full rotation (Nilsen & Strand, ). The most complete studies, based upon simulations (Moore, DeRose, Long, & van Miegroet, ; Nunery & Keeton, ; Pukkala, Lähde, & Laiho, ) or long‐term measurements (Nilsen & Strand, ), provide equivocal results in terms of the best silvicultural approach to sequester or store carbon. These contradictions may be due to the complexity of the calculations, as acknowledged by Moore et al.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing the effects of even‐ and uneven‐aged silviculture on ecological diversity and processes: A review

Nolet

Kneeshaw

Messier

et al. 2017

Ecology and Evolution

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With an increasing pressure on forested landscapes, conservation areas may fail to maintain biodiversity if they are not supported by the surrounding managed forest matrix. Worldwide, forests are managed by one of two broad approaches—even‐ and uneven‐aged silviculture. In recent decades, there has been rising public pressure against the systematic use of even‐aged silviculture (especially clear‐cutting) because of its perceived negative esthetic and ecological impacts. This led to an increased interest for uneven‐aged silviculture. However, to date, there has been no worldwide ecological comparison of the two approaches, based on multiple indicators. Overall, for the 99 combinations of properties or processes verified (one study may have evaluated more than one property or process), we found nineteen (23) combinations that clearly showed uneven‐aged silviculture improved the evaluated metrics compared to even‐aged silviculture, eleven (16) combinations that showed the opposite, and 60 combinations that were equivocal. Furthermore, many studies were based on a limited study design without either a timescale (44 of the 76) or spatial (54 of the 76) scale consideration. Current views that uneven‐aged silviculture is better suited than even‐aged silviculture for maintaining ecological diversity and processes are not substantiated by our analyses. Our review, by studying a large range of indicators and many different taxonomic groups, also clearly demonstrates that no single approach can be relied on and that both approaches are needed to ensure a greater number of positive impacts. Moreover, the review clearly highlights the importance of maintaining protected areas as some taxonomic groups were found to be negatively affected no matter the management approach used. Finally, our review points to a lack of knowledge for determining the use of even‐ or uneven‐aged silviculture in terms of both their respective proportion in the landscape and their spatial agency.

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“…Tree carbon storage, for example, is now increasingly recognized as an important forest function and it has become a central point in climate change discussions [49,50]. Strong trade-offs among supply, regulation, and cultural ecosystem services have been identified and described [48,51,52].…”

Section: Relaxing and Expanding The Sustained-yield And Single-good Pmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dealing with Non-linearity and Uncertainty in Forest Management

et al. 2016

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Forest managers today are struggling with the great uncertainties and rapid changes in many biophysical and socioeconomic aspects of their work. We argue in this review that viewing forests and forest management as complex adaptive systems and acknowledging non-linearity and uncertainty in forest dynamics and management provide an alternative for both production-and conservation-oriented forests to the traditional command and control approaches that have been advocated so far in forestry. We first discuss the concepts of nonlinearity and uncertainty in forest dynamics and management. We then propose a set of broad principles and approaches that are required for forest managers to better incorporate these new concepts into practices. These span from (1) relaxing and expanding the sustained-yield and single-good paradigm, (2) moving the target for assessing success in silviculture from predetermined strict outcomes for each and every stand to an envelope of possible outcomes that are acceptable for one or multiple stands, and (3) using approaches and modeling tools to assess as large a range of possible outcomes as possible instead of the traditional mainly deterministic and static modeling tools.

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Using Silviculture to Influence Carbon Sequestration in Southern Appalachian Spruce-Fir Forests

Cited by 23 publications

References 39 publications

The Contribution of Managed and Unmanaged Forests to Climate Change Mitigation—A Model Approach at Stand Level for the Main Tree Species in Bavaria

The Contribution of Managed and Unmanaged Forests to Climate Change Mitigation—A Model Approach at Stand Level for the Main Tree Species in Bavaria

Comparing the effects of even‐ and uneven‐aged silviculture on ecological diversity and processes: A review

Dealing with Non-linearity and Uncertainty in Forest Management

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