Björn Berg 
,
Per Gundersen,
Cecilia Akselsson,
Maj-Britt Johansson,
Åke Nilsson,
Lars Vesterdal
Carbon sequestration rates in Swedish forest soils – a comparison of three approaches
Berg B., Gundersen P., Akselsson C., Johansson M.-B., Nilsson Å., Vesterdal L. (2007). Carbon sequestration rates in Swedish forest soils – a comparison of three approaches. Silva Fennica vol. 41 no. 3 article id 288. https://doi.org/10.14214/sf.288
Abstract
Carbon sequestration rates in forest soil can be estimated using the concept of calculable stable remains in decomposing litter. In a case study of Swedish forest land we estimated C-sequestration rates for the two dominant tree species in the forest floor on top of the mineral soil. Carbon sequestration rates were upscaled to the forested land of Sweden with 23 x 106 ha with Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) and Norway spruce (Picea abies (Karst.) L.). Two different theoretical approaches, based on limit-value for litter decomposition and N-balance for vegetation and SOM gave rates of the same magnitude. For the upscaling, using these methods, 17 000 grids of 5 x 5 km were used.
The ‘limit-value approach’ gave a sequestration of 4.8 106 tons of C, annually sequestered in the forest floor, with an average of 180 kg C ha–1 yr–1 and a range from 40 to 410 kg C ha–1 yr–1. The ‘N-balance approach’ gave an average value of c. 96 kg ha–1 yr–1 and a range from –60 to 360 kg ha–1 yr–1. A method based on direct measurements of changes in humus depth over 40 years, combined with C analyses gave an average rate that was not very different from the calculated rates, viz. c. 180 kg ha–1 yr–1 and a range from –20 to 730 kg ha–1 yr–1. These values agree with forest floor C sequestration rate based on e.g. sampling of chronsequences but differ from CO2 balance measurements.
The three approaches showed different patterns over the country and regions with high and low carbon sequestration rates that were not always directly related to climate.
Keywords
carbon sequestration;
stable humus;
forest floor C;
litter decomposition;
limit value
-
Berg,
Dept. of Forest Ecology, University of Helsinki, Finland (present address: Dipartimento Biologia Strutturale e Funzionale, Complesso Universitario, Monte S. Angelo, Napoli, Italy
E-mail
bjorn.berg@helsinki.fi
- Gundersen, Forest & Landscape Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Denmark E-mail pg@nn.dk
- Akselsson, Swedish Environmental Research Institute, IVL, Gothenburg, Sweden E-mail ca@nn.se
- Johansson, Department of Forest Soils, SLU, Uppsala, Sweden E-mail mbj@nn.se
- Nilsson, Department of Forest Soils, SLU, Uppsala, Sweden E-mail an@nn.se
- Vesterdal, Forest & Landscape Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Denmark E-mail lv@nn.dk
Received 15 August 2006 Accepted 25 June 2007 Published 31 December 2007
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