Quantifying the Carbon Balance of Forest Restoration and Wildfire under Projected Climate in the Fire-Prone Southwestern US

Climate projections for the southwestern US suggest a warmer, drier future and have the potential to impact forest carbon (C) sequestration and post-fire C recovery. Restoring forest structure and surface fire regimes initially decreases total ecosystem carbon (TEC), but can stabilize the remaining...

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Veröffentlicht in:PloS one Jg. 12; H. 1; S. e0169275
1. Verfasser: Hurteau, Matthew D.
Format: Journal Article
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: United States Public Library of Science 03.01.2017
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Schlagworte:
Age
Biology and Life Sciences
Biomass
Carbon
Carbon - analysis
Carbon cycle
Climate Change
Climate effects
Computer Simulation
Drought
Earth Sciences
Ecological restoration
Ecology and Environmental Sciences
Ecosystem
Ecosystems
Engineering and Technology
Environmental aspects
Environmental changes
Environmental management
Environmental restoration
Evergreen trees
Fire behavior
Fire effects
Fires
Forest & brush fires
Forest effects
Forest fires
Forest management
Forests
Future climates
Geography
Juniperus scopulorum
Methods
open climate campaign
Pine trees
Pinus ponderosa
Prescribed fire
Prevention
Quercus gambelii
Restoration
Simulation
Southwestern United States
Sustainable forestry
Wildfires
Southwestern states
ISSN:1932-6203, 1932-6203
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Zusammenfassung:Climate projections for the southwestern US suggest a warmer, drier future and have the potential to impact forest carbon (C) sequestration and post-fire C recovery. Restoring forest structure and surface fire regimes initially decreases total ecosystem carbon (TEC), but can stabilize the remaining C by moderating wildfire behavior. Previous research has demonstrated that fire maintained forests can store more C over time than fire suppressed forests in the presence of wildfire. However, because the climate future is uncertain, I sought to determine the efficacy of forest management to moderate fire behavior and its effect on forest C dynamics under current and projected climate. I used the LANDIS-II model to simulate carbon dynamics under early (2010-2019), mid (2050-2059), and late (2090-2099) century climate projections for a ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) dominated landscape in northern Arizona. I ran 100-year simulations with two different treatments (control, thin and burn) and a 1 in 50 chance of wildfire occurring. I found that control TEC had a consistent decline throughout the simulation period, regardless of climate. Thin and burn TEC increased following treatment implementation and showed more differentiation than the control in response to climate, with late-century climate having the lowest TEC. Treatment efficacy, as measured by mean fire severity, was not impacted by climate. Fire effects were evident in the cumulative net ecosystem exchange (NEE) for the different treatments. Over the simulation period, 32.8-48.9% of the control landscape was either C neutral or a C source to the atmosphere and greater than 90% of the thin and burn landscape was a moderate C sink. These results suggest that in southwestern ponderosa pine, restoring forest structure and surface fire regimes provides a reasonable hedge against the uncertainty of future climate change for maintaining the forest C sink.
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Conceptualization: MH.Data curation: MH.Formal analysis: MH.Methodology: MH.Writing – original draft: MH.Writing – review & editing: MH.
Competing Interests: The author has declared that no competing interests exist.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0169275