Increasing forest carbon sinks in cold and arid northeastern Tibetan Plateau

Zongying Cao; Junzhou Zhang; Xiaohua Gou; Yuetong Wang; Qipeng Sun; Jiqin Yang; Rubén D Manzanedo; Neil Pederson

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.167168

Increasing forest carbon sinks in cold and arid northeastern Tibetan Plateau

Sci Total Environ. 2023 Dec 20:905:167168. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.167168. Epub 2023 Sep 18.

Authors

Zongying Cao¹, Junzhou Zhang², Xiaohua Gou³, Yuetong Wang¹, Qipeng Sun¹, Jiqin Yang⁴, Rubén D Manzanedo⁵, Neil Pederson⁶

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China; Gansu Liancheng Forest Ecosystem Field Observation and Research Station, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730333, China.
² Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China; Gansu Liancheng Forest Ecosystem Field Observation and Research Station, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730333, China. Electronic address: zhangjz@lzu.edu.cn.
³ Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China; Gansu Liancheng Forest Ecosystem Field Observation and Research Station, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730333, China. Electronic address: xhgou@lzu.edu.cn.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China; Gansu Liancheng Forest Ecosystem Field Observation and Research Station, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730333, China; Liancheng National Nature Reserve in Gansu, Lanzhou 730300, China.
⁵ Plant Ecology, Institute of Integrative Biology, D-USYS, ETH-Zürich, 8006 Zürich, Switzerland.
⁶ Harvard Forest, Harvard University, Petersham, MA 01366, USA.

PMID: 37730072
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.167168

Abstract

Arid forest lands account for 6 % of the world's forest area, but their carbon density and carbon storage capacity have rarely been assessed. Forest inventories provide estimates of forest stock and biomass carbon density, improve our understanding of the carbon cycle, and help us develop sustainable forest management policies in the face of climate change. Here, we carried out three forest inventories at five-year intervals from 2006 to 2016 in 104 permanent sample plots covering the Qinghai spruce (Picea crassifolia) distribution in the north slope of Qilian Mountains, northeastern Tibetan Plateau. Results shows that mean biomasses for Qinghai spruce were 133.80, 144.89, and 157.01 Mg ha^-1 while biomass carbon densities were 65.52, 70.92, and 76.88 Mg C ha^-1, in 2006, 2011, and 2016, respectively. This shows an increase in the Qinghai spruce carbon density of 17.34 % from 2006 to 2016. Both the precipitation and temperature play crucial roles on the increase of aboveground carbon density. The average carbon densities were different among forests with different ages and were higher for older forests. Our results show that the carbon sequestration rate for Qinghai spruce in the Qilian Mountains is significantly higher than the average rates of national forest parks in China, suggesting that this spruce forest has the potential to sequester a significant amount of carbon despite the general harsh growing conditions of cold and arid ecoregions. Our findings provide important insights that are helpful for the assessment of forest carbon for cold and arid lands.

Keywords: Biomass; Carbon density; Carbon stock; Cold and arid regions; Forest inventory; Qinghai spruce.