文章基本信息

标题：Valuing the Impact of Forest Disturbances on the Climate Regulation Service of Western U.S. Forests
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作者：Raymundo Marcos-Martinez ; José J. Sánchez ; Lorie Srivastava 等
期刊名称：Sustainability
印刷版ISSN：2071-1050
出版年度：2022
卷号：14
期号：2
页码：903
DOI：10.3390/su14020903
语种：English
出版社：MDPI, Open Access Journal
摘要：The protection and expansion of forest carbon sinks are critical to achieving climate-change mitigation targets. Yet, the increasing frequency and severity of forest disturbances challenge the sustainable provision of forest services. We investigated patterns of forest disturbances’ impacts on carbon sinks by combining spatial datasets of forest carbon sequestration from biomass growth and emissions from fire and bark beetle damage in the western United States (U.S.) and valued the social costs of forest carbon losses. We also examined potential future trends of forest carbon sinks under two climate-change projections using a global vegetation model. We found that forest carbon losses from bark-beetle damage were larger than emissions from fires between 2003 and 2012. The cumulative social costs of forest carbon losses ranged from USD 7 billion to USD 72 billion, depending on the severity of global warming and the discount rate. Forest carbon stocks could increase around 5% under Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 or 7% under RCP 8.5 by 2091 relative to 2011 levels, mostly in forests with high net primary productivity. These results indicate that spatially explicit management of forest disturbances may increase forest carbon sinks, thereby improving opportunities to achieve critical climate-change mitigation goals.