Chapter 3 - Modeling nitrogen deposition in global forests

Abstract

Understanding the spatial patterns and temporal dynamics of nitrogen (N) deposition is a prerequisite to evaluate its ecological impacts on global forests that cover nearly one third of the land area and provide fundamental ecosystem services. Although regional monitoring networks together with independent and short-term studies have provided important insights into the characteristics of N deposition in regional forests, the assessments and mapping of rates, components and seasonality of N deposition have rarely been conducted for global forests. This chapter summarizes the approaches in modeling N deposition to forests, reviews the modeling studies of N deposition to regional and global forested areas, and presents modeling estimates of N deposition for base year 2015 across global forests using the Meteorological Synthesizing Center—West of the European Monitoring and Evaluation Program (EMEP MSC-W) model. Particularly, modeling results are presented to show the seasonality of N deposition on global forests.