Increased deadwood carbon stocks through planted forestry practices: insights from a Forest Inventory Survey in Japan

Abstract

Deadwood, a vital component of forest ecosystems, constitutes a quintessential carbon reservoir that must be disclosed under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This reservoir, comprising fallen logs, snags, and stumps, markedly affects carbon dynamics over decades. In this study, deadwood carbon stocks were quantified using data from 2674 sites in Japan surveyed between 2011 and 2015 via the National Forest Soil Carbon Inventory, and the deadwood carbon attributes in the country were explored. Deadwood were surveyed using the line intersect method for fallen logs and the belt transect method for stumps and snags. In Japan, the deadwood carbon stock (measured in t-C/ha) was quantified at 7.5 ± 9.74 (mean ± SD), with fallen logs at 3.26 ± 4.43, stumps at 2.45 ± 5.69, and snags at 1.80 ± 5.27, with significant differences detected among these stocks (p < .001). Considering deadwood carbon accumulation in Japan, planted forests exhibited a significantly larger (p < .001) deadwood carbon stock than natural forests. Moreover, planted forests exhibited a higher proportion of fallen logs than snags and stumps, indicating the effects associated with logs left on forest floors after thinning. Based on these findings, deadwood carbon stocks have the potential to bolster the validation and refinement of computational models used in carbon accounting.