Forest management in a changing climate webinar

The session “Forest management in a changing climate” features presentations from two guest speakers: professor in the department of renewable resources at University of Alberta, Canada Research Chair in biodiversity and landscape modeling, Fangliang He; and professor and director of academics and communications in the department of renewable resources at the University of Alberta, Andreas Hamann.

Moderation for the session was provided by Dave Poulton, Senior Advisor at ALI.

The presentations were followed by a Q and A session.

Forest carbon sink potential: how many trees are there in Alberta’s boreal forest?

Fangliang He received funding from ALI and NSERC for research focused on modelling and mapping tree biomass in Alberta’s boreal forests to quantify the carbon sink potential of the forest. He’s presentation covered preliminary findings from his funded research on mapping the number of trees in Canada’s boreal forests.

The first portion of He’s research has focused on determining forest biomass carbon dynamics and in doing so determine how much potential Canadian forests have to enhance carbon sink capacity.

Forests are key to carbon sequestration since they sequester 20-30 per cent of carbon created by human activity globally and make up 80-90 per cent of global land mass.

In Alberta alone, 60 per cent of the land base is covered in boreal forests which make up 15 per cent of Canada’s boreal forests.

A previous 2015 study that mapped global trees estimated that there are 211 billion trees in North American boreal forests. He and his team set out to test the accuracy of these findings.

Using data from a permanent government sampling plot and a plot outside of Edmonton, He and his team mapped the number of trees with diameters larger than 10 centimetres.

The study estimated that there are 240 billion boreal trees in Canada alone, 30 billion of which are in Alberta.

Additionally, the study projected density changes in the next 30 years under various emission scenarios. While some areas did see a decrease in density, overall there was a projected increase of at least 11 per cent across all scenarios.

The next part of He’s project will involve modeling small trees (less than 10 centimetres in diameter) to determine biomass and carbon sequestration potential.

Climate informed reforestation: Data and models for decision support

The second presentation was from Andreas Hamann, discussing how reliably reforestation can address climate change through the use of climate-adapted species and seed sources.

Where seeds are sourced from in reforestation efforts has the potential to help our forests adapt to climate change if seeds are sourced based on projected climate conditions.

For example, if temperatures are projected to increase, species can be planted from southern regions that are already adapted to warmer temperatures.

This assisted migration is generally accomplished through either testing plantations that plant and monitor species in different environments or climate matching which matches a species based on similarities between the source and target climates.

The Government of Canada and Oregon State University have tools that recommend seed sources based on climate matching, but Hamann and his team developed their own tool based specifically on ecosystems.

The tool also allows users to source based on the projected conditions of a target area. Currently, Hamann is working with companies across the country to test the tool.

During his presentation, Hamann provided a live demo of the website.

The tool can be used to inform reforestation efforts, particularly in industries that are already required to replant trees such as logging.

Q & A

During the Q and A, He and Hamann touched on a few concerns about changing the composition of our forests such as how introducing new species might affect biodiversity.

Hamann spoke to the potential impact on ecosystems, explaining that we cannot know what is going to happen, but that the consequences of not encouraging our ecosystems to adapt could reduce the ability of forests to maintain carbon sequestration.

He responded to a concern about density contributing to forest fire severity. He acknowledged that density could mean more fuel for fires caused by lightning or human activity and stressed the importance of continuing to reduce human caused fires.

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A recording of the session is available on YouTube.

Thank you to all attendees and guest speakers. Keep an eye out for announcements for future webinar sessions.