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| Titel |
The carbon budget of terrestrial ecosystems at country-scale – a European case study |
| VerfasserIn |
I. A. Janssens, A. Freibauer, B. Schlamadinger, R. Ceulemans, P. Ciais, A. J. Dolman, M. Heimann, G.-J. Nabuurs, P. Smith, R. Valentini, E.-D. Schulze |
| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| ISSN |
1726-4170
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| Digitales Dokument |
URL |
| Erschienen |
In: Biogeosciences ; 2, no. 1 ; Nr. 2, no. 1 (2005-02-17), S.15-26 |
| Datensatznummer |
250000376
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 copernicus.org/bg-2-15-2005.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
We summed estimates of the carbon balance of forests, grasslands, arable
lands and peatlands to obtain country-specific estimates of the terrestrial
carbon balance during the 1990s. Forests and grasslands were a net sink for
carbon, whereas croplands were carbon sources in all European countries.
Hence, countries dominated by arable lands tended to be losing carbon from
their terrestrial ecosystems, whereas forest-dominated countries tended to
be sequestering carbon. In some countries, draining and extraction of
peatlands caused substantial reductions in the net carbon balance.
Net terrestrial carbon balances were typically an order of magnitude smaller
than the fossil fuel-related carbon emissions. Exceptions to this overall
picture were countries where population density and industrialization are
small. It is, however, of utmost importance to acknowledge that the
typically small net carbon balance represents the small difference between
two large but opposing fluxes: uptake by forests and grasslands and losses
from arable lands and peatlands. This suggests that relatively small changes
in either or both of these large component fluxes could induce large effects
on the net total, indicating that mitigation schemes should not be discarded
a priori.
In the absence of carbon-oriented land management, the current net carbon
uptake is bound to decline soon. Protecting it will require actions at three
levels; a) maintaining the current sink activity of forests, b) altered
agricultural management practices to reduce the emissions from arable soils
or turn into carbon sinks and c) protecting current large reservoirs
(wetlands and old forests), since carbon is lost more rapidly than
sequestered. |
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