Assessing the provision of carbon-related ecosystem services across a range of temperate grassland systems in western Canada

Abstract

Reliable data on the provision of ecosystem services (ES) is essential to the design and implementation of policies that incorporate ES into grassland conservation and restoration. We developed and applied an innovative approach for regional parameterization, and calibration of the CENTURY ecosystem model. We quantified spatiotemporal variation of soil organic carbon stock (SOC) and aboveground plant biomass production (AGB) and examined their responses to the recent climate change across a diverse range of native grassland systems in Alberta, western Canada. The simultaneous integration of SOC and AGB into calibration and analysis accounted for most of the spatiotemporal variability in the SOC and AGB measurements and resulted in reduced simulation uncertainty across nine grassland regions. These findings suggest the importance of the systematic parameterization and calibration for the reliable assessment of carbon-related ES across a wide geographic area with heterogeneous ecological conditions. Simulation results showed a pronounced variation in the spatial distribution of SOC and AGB and their associated uncertainty across grassland regions. Under baseline grazing intensity regime, an overall negative effect of recent climatic changes on the SOC, and a less consistent effect on the AGB were found. While, an overall positive or slightly negative impact of recent climate change on the SOC and AGB was found under a proposed 10% lower grazing intensity regime. These heterogeneities in the magnitude and direction of climate change effects under different grazing regimes suggest needs for a range of climate change adaptation strategies to maintain carbon-related ES in Alberta's grasslands. The modeling framework developed in this study can be used to improve the spatially explicit assessment of carbon-related ES in other geographically vast grassland areas and examine the effectiveness of alternative management scenarios to ensure the long-term provision of carbon-related ES in grassland systems.

Keywords: Biogeochemical processes; Calibration and uncertainty; Climate change; Grazing management; Plant biomass production; Soil carbon stock.