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Special Issue "Impacts of Forest Management Practices on Carbon Sequestration and Greenhouse Gas Exchange"

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A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Ecology and Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 January 2024 | Viewed by 988

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Yixiang Wang
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Guest Editor

College of Environment and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang A&F University, Hangzhou 311300, China
Interests: soil respiration; carbon sequestration; forestry informatization; greenhouse gas exchange

Prof. Dr. Zhibin Sun

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Guest Editor

School of Mathematical Sciences, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210046, China
Interests: data assimilation; mathematical modeling; numerical computation; remote sensing; machine learning
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Prof. Dr. Sean Thomas

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Guest Editor

Institute of Forestry and Conservation, University of Toronto, 33 Willcocks St., Toronto, ON M5S 3B3, Canada
Interests: biochar; forestry ecology; methane; carbon; physiological ecology; global change; silviculture
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Forest vegetation and soil are significant carbon sinks at the global scale, and they play important roles in sequestering greenhouse gases (GHGs) and regulating climate. The structure and function of forest ecosystems are strongly impacted by forest management practices, but they have historically been designed to maximize the yield of timber products. Forest management can potentially increase the carbon storage and GHG uptake of forest ecosystems, but such efforts must be based on a fundamental scientific understanding of the processes and wholistic assessments of GHG sources and sinks. To what extent can forest management practices enhance sinks for CO₂ and other GHGs? Which practices are best suited for specific forests to maximize carbon sink capacity? These questions remain unresolved, and further research is required to develop forest management practices for benefiting climate change mitigation. Forest management practices addressed in this Special Issue include but are not limited to the designation of reserve areas to enhance carbon sequestration, close-to-nature forest management, skid trail and harvest planning, increased rotation lengths, forest stand conversion, and multi-objective optimization that includes climate mitigation.

This issue welcomes empirical studies and reviews of regional forest management practices in, but not limited to, the following fields:

Carbon sequestration and climate change adaptation;
Carbon cycling;
Soil greenhouse gas flux;
Soil organic matter dynamics;
Life-cycle analyses of net carbon dynamics.

Prof. Dr. Yixiang Wang
Prof. Dr. Zhibin Sun
Prof. Dr. Sean Thomas
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

carbon stock and sequestration
climate change
forest management
carbon cycling
forest soil

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Open AccessArticle

Optimizing Carbon Sequestration in Forest Management Plans Using Advanced Algorithms: A Case Study of Greater Khingan Mountains

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Forests 2023, 14(9), 1785; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14091785 - 01 Sep 2023

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Abstract

The Paris Agreement aims to combat climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with bioenergy identified as a potential solution. However, concerns remain about its impact on carbon stocks and the optimal timing for implementation. To address these challenges, we propose a comprehensive multi-objective optimization model for forest management that maximizes carbon sequestration and economic benefits. Our model integrates three key components: (1) a sophisticated carbon-sequestration model encompassing living plants, wood forest products, and soil and microbial carbon uptake, (2) dynamic factors such as forest fires and extreme weather events, and (3) an economic benefits model focused on wood-processing products. We optimized the forest-management strategy over ten years by leveraging the simulated annealing and Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (KKT) algorithms. Through simulations using data from China’s Greater Khingan Mountains region, we explored the optimal logging plans for maximizing carbon sequestration without external factors. Our results revealed that the optimized logging plans significantly enhance carbon sequestration compared to proportionally averaged logging plans. Next, we investigated the impact of external factors on forest management, specifically wildfires and extreme weather events. Our findings demonstrate that wildfires have a more-substantial detrimental effect on the absolute value of carbon sequestration and the extent of improvement achieved through model optimization. At the same time, extreme cold primarily affects the growth rate of carbon sequestration. We employed a linear-weighting approach and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to address the trade-offs between carbon sequestration and economic benefits to transform the multi-objective optimization function into a single objective. The results showed that the optimized harvesting schedule can lead to improved economic benefits compared to uniformly harvesting trees. Moreover, the joint optimization approach enabled us to identify optimal solutions that balance carbon sequestration and economic benefits, offering sustainable forest management strategies. Our study provides valuable quantitative insights into forest management strategies that balance carbon sequestration and economic benefits, making it highly relevant for real-world applications. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Forest Management Practices on Carbon Sequestration and Greenhouse Gas Exchange)

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Open AccessArticle

CH₄ and N₂O Emissions of Undrained and Drained Nutrient-Rich Organic Forest Soil

and

Forests 2023, 14(7), 1390; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14071390 - 07 Jul 2023

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Abstract

The ability to accurately assess the impact of organic soil drainage on greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) is still limited. Methane (CH₄) emissions are characterized by significant variations, and GHG emissions from nutrient-rich organic soil in the region have not been extensively studied. The aim of this study was to assess CH₄ and nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions from nutrient-rich organic soil in hemiboreal forests to provide insights into their role in regional GHG balance. Over the course of one year, CH₄ and N₂O emissions, as well as their affecting factors, were monitored in 31 forest compartments in Latvia in both drained and undrained nutrient-rich organic soils. The sites were selected to include forests of different ages, dominated by silver birch (Betula pendula Roth), Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karsten), and black alder (Alnus glutinosai (L.) Gärtner), as well as clearcuts. Soil GHG emissions were estimated by collecting gas samples using the closed manual chamber method and analyzing these samples with a gas chromatograph. In addition, soil temperature and groundwater level (GW) measurements were conducted during gas sample collection. The mean annual CH₄ emissions from drained and undrained soil were −4.6 ± 1.3 and 134.1 ± 134.7 kg CH₄ ha⁻¹ year⁻¹, respectively. N₂O emissions from undrained soil (4.1 ± 1.4 kg N₂O ha⁻¹ year⁻¹) were significantly higher compared to those from drained soil (1.7 ± 0.6 kg N₂O ha⁻¹ year⁻¹). In most of the study sites, undrained soil acted as a CH₄ sink, with the soil estimated as a mean source of CH₄, which was determined by one site where an emission hotspot was evident. The undrained soil acted as a CH₄ sink due to the characteristics of GW level fluctuations, during which the vegetation season GW level was below 20 cm. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Forest Management Practices on Carbon Sequestration and Greenhouse Gas Exchange)

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