The Role of Wildfires in the Interplay of Forest Carbon Stocks and Wood Harvest in the Contiguous United States During the 20th Century.

ABSTRACT: Wildfires and land use play a central role in the long-term carbon (C) dynamics of forested ecosystems of the United States. Understanding their linkages with changes in biomass, resource use, and consumption in the context of climate change mitigation is crucial. We reconstruct a long-term C balance of forests in the contiguous U.S. using historical reports, satellite data, and other sources at multiple scales (national scale 1926-2017, regional level 1941-2017) to disentangle the drivers of biomass C stock change. The balance includes removals of forest biomass by fire, by extraction of woody biomass, by forest grazing, and by biomass stock change, their sum representing the net ecosystem productivity (NEP). Nationally, the total forest NEP increased for most of the 20th century, while f

SUBMITTER: Magerl A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10909529 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature