lnu.sePublications
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Quantifying disturbance effects on vegetation carbon pools in mountain forests based on historical data
Forest Ecology, Department of Environmental Sciences, Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Switzerland.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-6692-9838
Show others and affiliations
2009 (English)In: Regional Environmental Change, ISSN 1436-3798, E-ISSN 1436-378X, Vol. 9, no 2, p. 121-130Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Although the terrestrial carbon budget is of key importance for atmospheric CO(2) concentrations, little is known on the effects of management and natural disturbances on historical carbon stocks at the regional scale. We reconstruct the dynamics of vegetation carbon stocks and flows in forests across the past 100 years for a valley in the eastern Swiss Prealps using quantitative and qualitative information from forest management plans. The excellent quality of the historical information makes it possible to link dynamics in growing stocks with high-resolution time series for natural and anthropogenic disturbances. The results of the historical reconstruction are compared with modelled potential natural vegetation. Forest carbon stock at the beginning of the twentieth century was substantially reduced compared to natural conditions as a result of large scale clearcutting lasting until the late nineteenth century. Recovery of the forests from this unsustainable exploitation and systematic forest management were the main drivers of a strong carbon accumulation during almost the entire twentieth century. In the 1990s two major storm events and subsequent bark beetle infestations significantly reduced stocks back to the levels of the mid-twentieth century. The future potential for further carbon accumulation was found to be strongly limited, as the potential for further forest expansion in this valley is low and forest properties seem to approach equilibrium with the natural disturbance regime. We conclude that consistent long-term observations of carbon stocks and their changes provide rich information on the historical range of variability of forest ecosystems. Such historical information improves our ability to assess future changes in carbon stocks. Further, the information is vital for better parameterization and initialization of dynamic regional scale vegetation models and it provides important background for appropriate management decisions.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Springer, 2009. Vol. 9, no 2, p. 121-130
Keywords [en]
Forest carbon stock; Terrestrial carbon sinks; Windthrow; Bark beetle; Forest management; Historical ecology
National Category
Climate Science
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-89440DOI: 10.1007/s10113-008-0071-7OAI: oai:DiVA.org:lnu-89440DiVA, id: diva2:1357537
Available from: 2019-10-04 Created: 2019-10-04 Last updated: 2025-02-07Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

No full text in DiVA

Other links

Publisher's full text

Authority records

Wolf, Annett

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Wolf, Annett
In the same journal
Regional Environmental Change
Climate Science

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar

doi
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
urn-nbn
Total: 80 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf