The Role of Forests in Climate Change Regarding Carbon, Nitrogen, and Water: A Case Study of Pinus densiflora

Dong Kook Woo,Wonseok Do

doi:10.3390/w13213050

Abstract

We examined the influence of climate change on the dynamics of Pinus densiflora, the most dominant tree species in South Korea, to explore its potential for climate change mitigation. We considered changes in precipitation, temperature, and CO2 under four representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios separately and in combination to evaluate the responses of Pinus densiflora to climate change. A well-tested ecohydrological and biogeochemical model, ecosys, was used to study the Gwangneung Experimental Forest in South Korea. Results showed that the positive effects of CO2 fertilizer on gross primary productivity (GPP) and net primary productivity (NPP) outweighed the negative effects caused by changes in precipitation and temperature. In particular, NPP improvements of 3.79%, 13.44%, 18.26%, and 28.91% were modeled under RCP values of 2.6, 4.5, 6.5, and 8.5, respectively, compared to the baseline. We found that nitrogen leaching and N2O flux reduced as climate change become severe due to increases in nutrient uptake, leading to reduced soil nitrogen losses. Although evapotranspiration increased as the intensity of climate change increased, reductions in the stomatal opening improved the water use efficiency of Pinus densiflora. These results indicated that Pinus densiflora could serve as an environmentally friendly option to minimize climate change consequences.

Highlights

Global climate is changing at faster rates than any change documented in historical records [1]
We briefly describe key processes associated with gross primary productivity (GPP) and net primary productivity (NPP) dynamics modeled in ecosys, but do not list their detailed implementations
For the scenario of precipitation change alone, our results showed that changes in precipitation did not considerably alter GPP and NPP compared to baseline (Figure 3, first column)

Summary

Introduction

Global climate is changing at faster rates than any change documented in historical records [1]. Ecohydrological processes such as gross primary productivity (GPP), net primary productivity (NPP), and evapotranspiration have become non-stationary and highly variable due to global warming [2,3]. Changes in precipitation intensity and seasonal variability have been observed across time and space [4]. These changes are important to maintain the ecological balance in the Korean peninsula, because more than. The maximum temperature in Hongcheon in South Korea reached 40.3 ◦ C during the summer, which was the highest temperature ever recorded since 1907 [7]

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion