Kan uitstel van houtoogst bijdragen aan CO2-mitigatie?

In order to assess the role of postponing harvest in forests as a management option for climate mitigation, remeasurements were taken in 2018 and 2019 in unmanaged forest reserves containing douglas fir, larch, beech and Scots pine. This yielded information on the above-ground increment over a period of 30 years, carbon content in the litter layer and topsoil, and decomposition rates of dead wood. This produced insights in the carbon sequestration when timber harvesting is postponed for several decades and this was compared to managed forests. Based on the collected information on the increment of above-ground biomass in the forest reserves, the model EFISCEN Space was used to simulate carbon dynamics in the forest biomass in forest reserves, and the effects scaled up to the entire Dutch forest area. The carbon stocks and fluxes in forest biomass, trees and wood products were quantified using the model CO2FIX.