Dataset Information

Increasing forest disturbances in Europe and their impact on carbon storage.

ABSTRACT: Disturbances from wind, bark beetles, and wildfires have increased in Europe's forests throughout the 20th century 1. Climatic changes were identified as a main driver behind this increase 2, yet how the expected continuation of climate change will affect Europe's forest disturbance regime remains unresolved. Increasing disturbances could strongly impact the forest carbon budget 3,4, and are hypothesized to contribute to the recently observed carbon sink saturation in Europe's forests 5. Here we show that forest disturbance damage in Europe has continued to increase in the first decade of the 21st century. Based on an ensemble of climate change scenarios we find that damage from wind, bark beetles, and forest fires is likely to increase further in coming decades, and estimate the rate of increase to +0.91·106 m3 of timber per year until 2030. We show that this intensification can offset the effect of management strategies aiming to increase the forest carbon sink, and calculate the disturbance-related reduction of the carbon storage potential in Europe's forests to be 503.4 Tg C in 2021-2030. Our results highlight the considerable carbon cycle feedbacks of changing disturbance regimes, and underline that future forest policy and management will require a stronger focus on disturbance risk and resilience.

SUBMITTER: Seidl R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4340567 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Increasing forest disturbances in Europe and their impact on carbon storage.

Seidl Rupert R Schelhaas Mart-Jan MJ Rammer Werner W Verkerk Pieter Johannes PJ

Nature climate change 20140901 9

Disturbances from wind, bark beetles, and wildfires have increased in Europe's forests throughout the 20th century 1. Climatic changes were identified as a main driver behind this increase 2, yet how the expected continuation of climate change will affect Europe's forest disturbance regime remains unresolved. Increasing disturbances could strongly impact the forest carbon budget 3,4, and are hypothesized to contribute to the recently observed carbon si ...[more]

PMID: 25737744

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Project description:Forest disturbance regimes are intensifying in many parts of the globe. In order to mitigate disturbance impacts a number of management responses have been proposed, yet their effectiveness in addressing changing disturbance regimes remains largely unknown. The strong positive relationship between forest age and the vulnerability to disturbances such as windthrows and bark beetle infestations suggests that a reduced rotation length can be a potent means for mitigating the impacts of natural disturbances. However, disturbance mitigation measures such as shortened rotation lengths (SRL) can also have undesired consequences on ecosystem services and biodiversity, which need to be considered in their application. Here, we used the process-based landscape and disturbance model iLand to investigate the effects of SRL on the vulnerability of a 16,000 ha forest landscape in Central Europe to wind and bark beetle disturbances. We experimentally reduced the current rotation length (between 100 and 115 years) by up to −40% in 10% increments, and studied effects on disturbance dynamics under current and future climate conditions over a 200-year simulation period. Simultaneously, we quantified the collateral effects of SRL on forest carbon stocks and indicators of biodiversity. Shortening the rotation length by 40% decreased disturbances by 14%. This effect was strongly diminished under future climate change, reducing the mitigating effect of shortened rotation to < 6%. Collateral effects were severe in the initial decades after implementation: Reducing the rotation length by 40% caused a spike in harvested timber volume (+ 92%), decreased total forest carbon storage by 6% and reduced the number of large trees on the landscape by 20%. The long-term effects of SRL were less pronounced. At the same time, SRL caused an increase in tree species diversity. Shortening rotation length can reduce the impact of wind and bark beetle disturbances, but the overall efficiency of the measure is limited and decreases under climate change. Given the potential for undesired collateral effects we conclude that a reduction of the rotation length is no panacea for managing increasing disturbances, and should be applied in combination with other management measures reducing risks and fostering resilience.

Project description:Natural disturbance regimes are changing substantially in forests around the globe. However, large-scale disturbance change is modulated by a considerable spatiotemporal variation within biomes. This variation remains incompletely understood particularly in the temperate forests of Europe, for which consistent large-scale disturbance information is lacking. Here, our aim was to quantify the spatiotemporal patterns of forest disturbances across temperate forest landscapes in Europe using remote sensing data and determine their underlying drivers. Specifically, we tested two hypotheses: (1) Topography determines the spatial patterns of disturbance, and (2) climatic extremes synchronize natural disturbances across the biome. We used novel Landsat-based maps of forest disturbances 1986-2016 in combination with landscape analysis to compare spatial disturbance patterns across five unmanaged forest landscapes with varying topographic complexity. Furthermore, we analyzed annual estimates of disturbances for synchronies and tested the influence of climatic extremes on temporal disturbance patterns. Spatial variation in disturbance patterns was substantial across temperate forest landscapes. With increasing topographic complexity, natural disturbance patches were smaller, more complex in shape, more dispersed, and affected a smaller portion of the landscape. Temporal disturbance patterns, however, were strongly synchronized across all landscapes, with three distinct waves of high disturbance activity between 1986 and 2016. All three waves followed years of pronounced drought and high peak wind speeds. Natural disturbances in temperate forest landscapes of Europe are thus spatially diverse but temporally synchronized. We conclude that the ecological effect of natural disturbances (i.e., whether they are homogenizing a landscape or increasing its heterogeneity) is strongly determined by the topographic template. Furthermore, as the strong biome-wide synchronization of disturbances was closely linked to climatic extremes, large-scale disturbance episodes are likely in Europe's temperate forests under climate changes.

Dataset Information

Increasing forest disturbances in Europe and their impact on carbon storage.

Publications

Increasing forest disturbances in Europe and their impact on carbon storage.

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