Carbon Information Needed to Support Forest Management

Bob Davis, Director Of Planning, Watershed And Air, USDA

Forest Service

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USDA Forest Service

• National Forest System

• 155 National Forests• 20 Grasslands• 193 Million Acres

• Research and Development

• 7 Research Stations• 500 Scientists

• State and Private Forestry

• Technical and Financial • Fire and Aviation Mgt.• Forest Health• Cooperative Forestry

The U.S. Forest Service

The Forests & Grasslands of the Southwestern Region

Carbon Policy Aspects

Climate Change Response Strategies Mitigation/Sequestration Adaptive Management/Resilience

Climate Change Performance Scorecard Element 9 – Carbon stocks and flows.

National Forest Management Act 2012 Planning Rule: Systems drivers, including climate change (219.6(b)(3)) Baseline assessment of carbon stocks (219.6(b)(4))

Carbon Off-Set Policies and potential future use in policy

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Carbon Flow: Wildfire

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Carbon Flow: Timber Management

Timber HarvestTimber Stand Improvement

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Carbon Flow: Prescribed Fire

Prescribed Fire Pile Burning

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Carbon Flow: Tree Planting

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Assessing Carbon• Need to Model

Carbon• Forest Carbon

Management Framework (ForCaMF)

• The Integrated Terrestrial Ecosystem Carbon Model (InTEC)

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Overall stocks may be estimated through forest inventory methods

Courtesy: Chris Woodall, Forest Inventory and Analysis Program (FIA) of the US Forest Service

However, stock estimates give little insights into forest dynamics and how carbon storage might be managed

The Integrated Terrestrial Ecosystem Carbon Model (InTEC)

We are using an ecosystem process model to augment the monitoring data from Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) inventories

InTEC allows the estimates from FIA to be partitioned into the main causes of observed trends: Harvesting Natural Disturbance Climate

For application to U.S. National Forests, InTEC is closely calibrated to FIA standards

Examples of InTEC Results

for Continental U.S. (Zhang et. al 2012)

Top: Annual net biome production of U.S. forests (vegetation and soil)

Bottom: Geographic distribution of annual net biome production from 2 main causes, 1990-2010

Downscaling with InTEC: Spatial and Temporal Change in Carbon Stocks, Northern

Wisconsin and Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest

InTEC Model (Zhang et al. 2012)

The Forest Carbon Management Framework (ForCaMF)

Tool for identifying the effects of management and natural

disturbances on carbon storage in forests

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Landsat-based maps of 1990 vegetation conditions and 1990-2011 disturbance effects• Calibrated with Forest Service

records and inventories

Forest Service Growth Simulator (FVS)• Already used in the planning process

Report for each National Forest about the local influence of disturbance versus growth• Consistent with other Forest

Service tools• Calibrated for landscape-

level planning units

Effects of management and disturbance may be identified for each National Forest

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The Forest Carbon Management Framework (ForCaMF)

Fire Emissions

Harvest Emissions

Extreme fire year

Carb

on E

mit

ted

(t/

year)

The combination of remote sensing, inventory, and Forest Service growth models allows locally meaningful but nationally repeatable insights into what affects forest carbon storage

Carbon Information Needed to Support Forest Management

Forest Service Climate Change Resource Center http://www.fs.fed.us/ccrc/

2010 Resources Planning Act Assessment (Chapter 10) http://www.fs.fed.us/research/rpa/

Forest Inventory and Analysis http://www.fia.fs.fed.us/

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