Assessing Wood and Soil Carbon Losses from a Forest-Peat Fire in the Boreo-Nemoral Zone

oleh: Andrey Sirin, Alexander Maslov, Dmitry Makarov, Yakov Gulbe, Hans Joosten

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2021-07-01

Deskripsi

Forest-peat fires are notable for their difficulty in estimating carbon losses. Combined carbon losses from tree biomass and peat soil were estimated at an 8 ha forest-peat fire in the Moscow region after catastrophic fires in 2010. The loss of tree biomass carbon was assessed by reconstructing forest stand structure using the classification of pre-fire high-resolution satellite imagery and after-fire ground survey of the same forest classes in adjacent areas. Soil carbon loss was assessed by using the root collars of stumps to reconstruct the pre-fire soil surface and interpolating the peat characteristics of adjacent non-burned areas. The mean (median) depth of peat losses across the burned area was 15 ± 8 (14) cm, varying from 13 ± 5 (11) to 20 ± 9 (19). Loss of soil carbon was 9.22 ± 3.75–11.0 ± 4.96 (mean) and 8.0–11.0 kg m<sup>−2</sup> (median); values exceeding 100 tC ha<sup>−1</sup> have also been found in other studies. The estimated soil carbon loss for the entire burned area, 98 (mean) and 92 (median) tC ha<sup>−1</sup>, significantly exceeds the carbon loss from live (tree) biomass, which averaged 58.8 tC ha<sup>−1</sup>. The loss of carbon in the forest-peat fire thus equals the release of nearly 400 (soil) and, including the biomass, almost 650 tCO<sub>2</sub> ha<sup>−1</sup> into the atmosphere, which illustrates the underestimated impact of boreal forest-peat fires on atmospheric gas concentrations and climate.