Assessing Earthquake-Induced Tree Mortality in Temperate Forest Ecosystems: A Case Study from Wenchuan, China

Zeng, Hongcheng; Lu, Tao; Jenkins, Hillary; Negron-Juarez, Robinson; Xu, Jiceng

doi:10.3390/rs8030252

Title: Assessing Earthquake-Induced Tree Mortality in Temperate Forest Ecosystems: A Case Study from Wenchuan, China

Journal Article · Thu Mar 17 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Remote Sensing

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3390/rs8030252· OSTI ID:1378732

Zeng, Hongcheng ^[1]; Lu, Tao ^[2]; Jenkins, Hillary ^[3]; Negron-Juarez, Robinson ^[4]; Xu, Jiceng ^[2]

Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu (China); Univ. of Toronto, Toronto, ON (Canada)
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu (China)
Univ. of Redlands, Redlands, CA (United States)
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Earthquakes can produce significant tree mortality, and consequently affect regional carbon dynamics. Unfortunately, detailed studies quantifying the influence of earthquake on forest mortality are currently rare. The committed forest biomass carbon loss associated with the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China is assessed by a synthetic approach in this study that integrated field investigation, remote sensing analysis, empirical models and Monte Carlo simulation. The newly developed approach significantly improved the forest disturbance evaluation by quantitatively defining the earthquake impact boundary and detailed field survey to validate the mortality models. Based on our approach, a total biomass carbon of 10.9 Tg·C was lost in Wenchuan earthquake, which offset 0.23% of the living biomass carbon stock in Chinese forests. Tree mortality was highly clustered at epicenter, and declined rapidly with distance away from the fault zone. It is suggested that earthquakes represent a signif icant driver to forest carbon dynamics, and the earthquake-induced biomass carbon loss should be included in estimating forest carbon budgets.

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Research Organization:: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-05CH11231

OSTI ID:: 1378732

Journal Information:: Remote Sensing, Vol. 8, Issue 3; ISSN 2072-4292

Publisher:: MDPICopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 5 works

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Tree survival and growth responses in the aftermath of a strong earthquake Allen, Robert B.; MacKenzie, Darryl I.; Bellingham, Peter J. Journal of Ecology, Vol. 108, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.13238	journal	July 2019
Tree survival and growth responses in the aftermath of a strong earthquake Allen, Rb; MacKenzie, Di; Bellingham, Pj Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository https://doi.org/10.17863/cam.43172	text	January 2020

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54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
synthetic approach
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remote sensing
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Title: Assessing Earthquake-Induced Tree Mortality in Temperate Forest Ecosystems: A Case Study from Wenchuan, China

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