Estimation of the carbon storage of forest vegetation and carbon emission from forest fires in Heilongjiang Province, China

Abstract

The forest resource of Heilongjiang province has important position in china. On the basis of the six times of national forest inventory data (1973–1976, 1977–1981, 1985–1988, 1989–1993, 1994–1998, 1999–2003) surveyed by the Forestry Ministry of P. R. China from 1973 to 2003, the carbon storage of forests in Heilongjiang Province are estimated by using the method of linear relationship of each tree species between biomass and volume. The results show that the carbon storage of Heilongjiang forests in the six periods (1973–1976, 1977–1981, 1985–1988, 1989–1993, 1994–1998, 1999–2003) are 7.164×108t, 4.871×108t, 5.094×108t, 5.292×108t, 5.594×108 t and 5.410×108t, respectively., which showed a trend of decreasing in early time and then increasing. It indicated that Heilongjiang forests play an important role as a sink of atmospheric carbon dioxide during past 30 years. Based on the data of forest fires from 1980 to 1999 and ground biomass estimation for some forest types in Heilongjiang Province, it is estimated that the amount of mean annual consumed biomass of forests is 391758.65t–522344.95t, accounting for 6.4%–8.4% of total national consummation from forest fires, and the amount of carbon emission is 176 291.39t–235 055.23t, about 8% of total national emission from forest fires. The emission of CO2, CO, CH4 and NMHC from forest fires in Heilongjiang Province are estimated at 581761.6–775682.25 t, 34892.275–46523.04 t, 14091.11–18788.15 t and 6500–9000 t, respectively, every year.