Carbon Emission and Redistribution among Forest Carbon Pools, and Change in Soil Nutrient Content after Different Severities of Forest Fires in Northeast China

Forest fires are a significant factor that affects the boreal forest carbon distribution which emits carbon into the atmosphere and leads to carbon redistribution among carbon pools. However, knowledge about how much carbon was transferred among pools and the immediate changes in soil nutrient contents in areas that were burned by fires of various severities are still limited. In this study, we surveyed eight wildfire sites that are located in northeast China within three months after the fires occurred. Our results indicate that the total soil nitrogen, phosphorus, and organic carbon contents significantly increased after moderate- and high-severity fires. The carbon emissions were 3.84, 5.14, and 12.86 Mg C/ha for low-, moderate-, and high-severity fires, respectively. The amount of carbon transferred among pools increased with fire severity except for the charcoal pool, storing the highest amounts of carbon in moderate-severity fires. Although the charcoal and ash pools accounted for a small proportion of the total ecosystem, they are important for biogeochemical cycles and are worthy of attention. The carbon redistribution information in our study is important for accurately estimating the forest carbon budget and providing crucial parameters for forest carbon cycling models to incorporate the carbon transfer process.

KARAKTERISTIK SPASIAL DAN POTENSI CADANGAN KARBON DI BENTANG ALAM MBELILING NUSA TENGGARA TIMUR

Providing comprehensive information on carbon stock data on all carbon pools needs to be done to plan and measure climate change mitigation efforts that are carried out. This research was conducted by analyzing spatial characteristics and estimating carbon stocks with model development. Spatial analysis is carried out to provide an overview of the distribution of spatial values that can use the built model. Estimation of carbon stock is carried out by building a carbon stock estimator model that correlates the value of remote sensing parameters with the value of carbon stocks in all carbon storage sources. The characteristics of the vegetation index value in the forest category are greater than in the non-forest category and vice versa for the distribution of the digital number average value. The model development is only carried out on aboveground biomass and belowground biomass carbon pools. The results of the analysis of the estimation of carbon stocks based on the selected model showed the potential for aboveground biomass was 5,200,841.45 tC and the potential for belowground biomass was 1,317,948.10 tC.