Management of forest fires to maximize carbon sequestration in temperate and boreal forests
- Applied Environmental Research, Inc., Falls Church, VA (United States)
This study examines opportunities for applying prescribed burning strategies to forest stands to enhance net carbon sequestration and compared prescribed burning strategies with more conventional forestry-based climate change mitigation alternatives, including fire suppression and afforestation. Biomass burning is a major contributor to greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere. Biomass burning has increased by 50% since 1850. Since 1977, the annual extent of burning in the northern temperate and boreal forests has increased dramatically, from six- to nine-fold. Long-term suppression of fires in North America, Russia, and other parts of the world has led to accumulated fuel load and an increase in the destructive power of wildfires. Prescribed burning has been used successfully to reduce the destructiveness of wildfires. However, across vast areas of Russia and other regions, prescribed burning is not a component of forest management practices. Given these factors and the sheer size of the temperate-boreal carbon sink, increasing attention is being focused on the role of these forests in mitigating climate change, and the role of fire management strategies, such as prescribed burning, which could work alongside more conventional forestry-based greenhouse gas offset strategies, such as afforestation.
- OSTI ID:
- 471046
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-960420--; ISBN 0-884736-02-5
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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