Increasing forest disturbances in Europe and their impact on carbon storage.
Disturbances from wind, bark beetles, and wildfires have increased in Europe's forests throughout the 20thcentury1. Climatic changes were identified as a main driver behind this increase2, yet how the expected continuation of climate change will affect Europe's forest disturbance regime remains unresolved. Increasing disturbances could strongly impact the forest carbon budget3,4, and are hypothesized to contribute to the recently observed carbon sink saturation in Europe's forests5. Here we show that forest disturbance damage in Europe has continued to increase in the first decade of the 21stcentury. Based on an ensemble of climate change scenarios we find that damage from wind, bark beetles, and forest fires is likely to increase further in coming decades, and estimate the rate of increase to +0.91·106m3of timber per year until 2030. We show that this intensification can offset the effect of management strategies aiming to increase the forest carbon sink, and calculate the disturbance-related reduction of the carbon storage potential in Europe's forests to be 503.4 Tg C in 2021-2030. Our results highlight the considerable carbon cycle feedbacks of changing disturbance regimes, and underline that future forest policy and management will require a stronger focus on disturbance risk and resilience.
Institute of Silviculture, Department of Forest- and Soil Sciences, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) Vienna, Peter Jordan Straße 82, 1190 Vienna, Austria.
Rupert
R
Seidl
Alterra, Wageningen University and Research Centre, PO Box 47, NL-6700 AA Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Mart-Jan
MJ
Schelhaas
Institute of Silviculture, Department of Forest- and Soil Sciences, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) Vienna, Peter Jordan Straße 82, 1190 Vienna, Austria.
Werner
W
Rammer
European Forest Institute, Sustainability and Climate Change program, Yliopistokatu 6, 80100 Joensuu, Finland.
Pieter Johannes
PJ
Verkerk