Mikko Peltoniemi, Esther Thürig, Stephen Ogle, Taru Palosuo, Marion Schrumpf, Thomas Wutzler, Klaus Butterbach-Bahl, Oleg Chertov, Alexander Komarov, Aleksey Mikhailov, Annemieke Gärdenäs, Charles Perry, Jari Liski, Pete Smith, Raisa Mäkipää. (2007). Models in country scale carbon accounting of forest soils. Silva Fennica vol. 41 no. 3 article id 290. https://doi.org/10.14214/sf.290

Keywords: National Forest Inventory; soil carbon; greenhouse gas inventory; decomposition; IPCC; regional and national modeling; soil model

Abstract | View details | Full text in PDF | Author Info

Countries need to assess changes in the carbon stocks of forest soils as a part of national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol (KP). Since measuring these changes is expensive, it is likely that many countries will use alternative methods to prepare these estimates. We reviewed seven well-known soil carbon models from the point of view of preparing country-scale soil C change estimates. We first introduced the models and explained how they incorporated the most important input variables. Second, we evaluated their applicability at regional scale considering commonly available data sources. Third, we compiled references to data that exist for evaluation of model performance in forest soils. A range of process-based soil carbon models differing in input data requirements exist, allowing some flexibility to forest soil C accounting. Simple models may be the only reasonable option to estimate soil C changes if available resources are limited. More complex models may be used as integral parts of sophisticated inventories assimilating several data sources. Currently, measurement data for model evaluation are common for agricultural soils, but less data have been collected in forest soils. Definitions of model and measured soil pools often differ, ancillary model inputs require scaling of data, and soil C measurements are uncertain. These issues complicate the preparation of model estimates and their evaluation with empirical data, at large scale. Assessment of uncertainties that accounts for the effect of model choice is important part of inventories estimating large-scale soil C changes. Joint development of models and large-scale soil measurement campaigns could reduce the inconsistencies between models and empirical data, and eventually also the uncertainties of model predictions.

Peltoniemi, Finnish Forest Research Institute, Vantaa Research Unit, P.O. Box 18, FI-01301 Vantaa, Finland E-mail: mikko.peltoniemi@metla.fi
Thürig, Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), Birmensdorf, Switzerland; European Forest Institute, Joensuu, Finland E-mail: et@nn.ch
Ogle, Natural Resources Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, USA E-mail: so@nn.us
Palosuo, European Forest Institute, Joensuu, Finland E-mail: tp@nn.fi
Schrumpf, Max-Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany E-mail: ms@nn.de
Wutzler, Max-Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany E-mail: tw@nn.de
Butterbach-Bahl, Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research, Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany E-mail: kbb@nn.de
Chertov, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg-Peterhof, Russia E-mail: oc@nn.ru
Komarov, Institute of Physicochemical and Biological Problems in Soil Science of Russian Academy of Sciences, Pushchino, Russia E-mail: ak@nn.ru
Mikhailov, Institute of Physicochemical and Biological Problems in Soil Science of Russian Academy of Sciences, Pushchino, Russia E-mail: am@nn.ru
Gärdenäs, Dept. of Soil Sciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden E-mail: ag@nn.se
Perry, USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station, St. Paul, MN USA E-mail: cp@nn.us
Liski, Finnish Environment Institute, Helsinki, Finland E-mail: jl@nn.fi
Smith, School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK E-mail: ps@nn.uk
Mäkipää, Finnish Forest Research Institute, Vantaa Research Unit, P.O. Box 18, FI-01301 Vantaa, Finland E-mail: raisa.makipaa@metla.fi

Category : Research article

article id 265, category Research article

Emil Cienciala, Erkki Tomppo, Arnor Snorrason, Mark Broadmeadow, Antoine Colin, Karsten Dunger, Zuzana Exnerova, Bruno Lasserre, Hans Petersson, Tibor Priwitzer, Gerardo Sanchez, Göran Ståhl. (2008). Preparing emission reporting from forests: use of National Forest Inventories in European countries. Silva Fennica vol. 42 no. 1 article id 265. https://doi.org/10.14214/sf.265

Keywords: forest carbon pools; greenhouse gas inventory; Kyoto Protocol; UNFCCC

Abstract | View details | Full text in PDF | Author Info

We examine the current status of greenhouse gas inventories of the sector Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF), in European countries, with specific focus on the utilization of National Forest Inventory (NFI) programs. LULUCF inventory is an integral part of the reporting obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol. The analysis is based on two questionnaires prepared by the COST Action E43 “Harmonisation of National Forest Inventories in Europe”, which were answered by greenhouse gas reporting experts in European countries. The following major conclusions can be drawn from the analysis: 1) definitions used to obtain carbon pool change estimates vary widely among countries and are not directly comparable 2) NFIs play a key role for LULUCF greenhouse gas estimation and reporting under UNFCCC, and provide the fundamental data needed for the estimation of carbon stock changes covering not only living biomass, but increasingly also deadwood, litter and soil compartments. The study highlights the effects of adopting different definitions for two major reporting processes, namely UNFCCC and FAO, and exemplifies the effect of different tree diameter thresholds on carbon stock change estimates for Finland. The results demonstrate that more effort is needed to harmonize forest inventory estimates for the purpose of making the estimates of forest carbon pool changes comparable. This effort should lead to a better utilization of the data from the European NFI programs and improve the European greenhouse gas reporting.

Cienciala, Institute of Forest Ecosystem Research (IFER), Areal 1. Jilovske a.s. 1544, 254 01 Jilove u Prahy, Czech Republic E-mail: emil.cienciala@ifer.cz
Tomppo, Metla, Finnish Forest Research Institute, Finland E-mail: et@nn.fi
Snorrason, Icelandic Forest Research, Iceland E-mail: as@nn.is
Broadmeadow, Forestry Commission, Forest Research Alice Holt Logdge, United Kingdom E-mail: mb@nn.uk
Colin, French National Forest Inventory, France E-mail: ac@nn.fr
Dunger, Federal Research Centre for Forestry and Forest Products, Institute of Forest Ecology and Forest Assessment, Germany E-mail: kd@nn.de
Exnerova, Institute of Forest Ecosystem Research, Czech Republic E-mail: ze@nn.cz
Lasserre, Department of Environment and Territory Sciences and Technologies, University of Molise, Italy E-mail: bl@nn.it
Petersson, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Forest Resource Management, Sweden E-mail: hp@nn.se
Priwitzer, National Forest Centre, Forest Research Institute. Slovak Republic E-mail: tb@nn.sk
Sanchez, Forest Health Unit, General Directorate for Biodiversity, Environmental Ministry, Spain E-mail: gs@nn.es
Ståhl, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Forest Resource Management, Sweden E-mail: gs@nn.se

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