Abstract :
[en] Forest ecosystems play a major role in atmospheric
carbon sequestration and emission. Comparable
organic carbon stock estimates at temporal and spatial scales
for all forest pools are needed for scientific investigations
and political purposes. Therefore, we developed a new carbon
stock (CS) estimation procedure that combines forest
inventory and soil and litter geodatabases at a regional scale
(southern Belgium). This procedure can be implemented in
other regions and countries on condition that available
external carbon soil and litter data can be linked to forest
inventory plots. The presented procedure includes a specific
CS estimation method for each of the following forest pools
and subpools (in brackets): living biomass (aboveground and
belowground), deadwood (dead trees and snags, coarse
woody debris and stumps), litter, and soil. The total CS of the
forest was estimated at 86 Tg (185 Mg ha-1). Soil up to
0.2 m depth, living biomass, litter, and deadwood CSs
account, respectively, for 48, 47, 4, and 1 % of the total CS.
The analysis of the CS variation within the pools across
ecoregions and forest types revealed in particular that: (1) the
living biomass CS of broadleaved forests exceeds that of
coniferous forests, (2) the soil and litter CSs of coniferous
forest exceed those of broadleaved forests, and (3) beech
stands come at the top in carbon stocking capacity. Because
our estimates differ sometimes significantly from the previous
studies, we compared different methods and their
impacts on the estimates. We demonstrated that estimates
may vary highly, from -16 to ?12 %, depending on the
selected methods. Methodological choices are thus essential
especially for estimating CO2 fluxes by the stock change
approach. The sources of error and the accuracy of the estimates
were discussed extensively.
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