Domke’s team found that fully replanting forests that have lost trees, particularly in western states, Florida, and the Northeast, could substantially increase the annual carbon capture on existing forest land. Crews regularly visit these plots to measure and inventory trees and other vegetation, inventory invasive species, and take soil samples, making the FIA the gold standard in forest inventory. To answer that question, Domke and his team in the Forest Inventory & Analysis (FIA) Program analyzed data from more than 130,000 of the forested FIA plots established throughout the nation. The question is, how would replacing those trees, something foresters call reforestation, affect the amount of carbon a forest captures? Forests lose trees in a variety of ways, including losing large swaths of trees suddenly to forest fires, and more gradually to age, disease and timber harvest. ![]() This year, Domke and his team reported that in terms of terrestrial carbon storage, forest land, harvested wood products, woodlands, and urban trees collectively represent the largest net carbon sink in the United States, offsetting more than 11% of total greenhouse gas emissions in 2019.Īs a research forester with the USDA Forest Service’s Northern Research Station, Domke studies where and how forests store carbon. ![]() When not “captured,” or fixed in place naturally by trees, soil, grasslands and oceans, carbon is one of the leading greenhouse gases contributing to climate change. Research Forester Grant Domke thinks a lot about trees and carbon, and he is not alone. The authors of this project filled an important gap in the existing research on. Clearly, a garden featuring trees, shrubs, grasses, and perennials has far more potential to sequester carbon than any one monoculture (ahem, lawn). Retrofitting existing plants appears too expensive new plants designed for CO 2 capture are more promising ( 8 ). This project provides a framework for design of landscapes for carbon sequestration based on literature review of the connections between plant traits, plant diversity, soil ecological health, and complex adaptive systems. Most sequestration methods require concentrated CO 2, which is best captured at large plants that generate clean, carbon-free energy carriers such as electricity and hydrogen. USDA Forest Service photo from Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. Landscape Design for Carbon Sequestration. ![]() Planting the right trees in the right places at the right densities could greatly increase the amount of carbon captured on forest lands.
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