Impact of forestry practices on carbon balance in forest steppes and steppes of European Russia

Abstract

The paper assesses the impact of forestry practices on carbon balance in forest ecosystems the example of eleven regions fully or partly included in forest-steppe or steppe of European Russia (ER). Calculations made by the procedure «Regional evaluation carbon balance in forests», has shown, that yearly fires and other forest destruction causes harmed carbon stock by all pools of forest ecosystems the studied regions in amount of 2632,000 [tC year−1] (tons of carbon per year) (87.3 % of total loss of carbon by forest ecosystems). Forestry practices such as salvage felling harm carbon stock of forest ecosystems in amount of 288 thousand [tC year−1] (9.5 %). Improvement felling harmed it in amount of 108,000 [tC year−1] (3.58 %). Only activities on forest restoration led to carbon stock accumulation in forest ecosystems in amount of 12 thousand [tC year−1] (0.5 %) in the period 2007-2015. Total average annual carbon losses from forestry practices were equal up to 3,013,000 [tC year−1] in studied forest ecosystems. Severe reduction of forest fires in 2016 led to a reduction in total carbon losses up to 397,000 [tC year−1]. In general, during researching period the carbon balance has a positive value and was equal to 3,090,000 [tC year−1] in the studied forest ecosystems in the period of 2007-2015, and rolled over to 5,706,000 [tC year−1] in 2016.