Climate Protection: Land Use Changes Cause the Carbon Sink to Decline

Terrestrial carbon sinks can mitigate the greenhouse effect. Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and other research institutions pooled various data sources and found that European carbon storage takes place mainly in surface biomass in East Europe. However, changes of land use in particular have caused this carbon sink to decline. The researchers report in Communications Earth & Environment. (DOI: 10.1038/s43247-023-00893-4)

Forests can bind large amounts of carbon on the land surface. In this way, they decisively contribute to reducing net greenhouse gas emissions. For some areas, however, data are still lacking. In East Europe, in particular, the network of installed measurement stations is very loose, such that little has been known about carbon flows and their drivers there. “But East European forests have a great potential as a long-term carbon sink,” says Karina Winkler from the Atmospheric Environmental Research Department of the Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK-IFU), KIT’s Campus Alpine in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. “Political upheavals in East Europe, however, have caused big changes of land use. Moreover, climate change there increasingly affects the forests. This unique interaction of socioeconomic and climatic factors influences the carbon sinks.”

Study Area Covers 13 Countries

Researchers of IMK-IFU’s Land Use Change & Climate Group, together with researchers from other European research institutions, have now recalculated the carbon sinks in East Europe. The area studied covers 13 countries, from Poland in the West to the Russian Ural Mountains in the East, from the Kola peninsula in the North to Rumania in the South. Calculations are based on different data sources, such as models, satellite-based biomass estimates, forest inventories, and national statistics.

Read more at Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT)

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