Mapping tree demographic rates and biomass of Alberta’s boreal forest
Area of Study: Alberta Carbon Sink Potential; Land Use, Resilience, and Environmental Risk
Year
2024
Status
Current
Principal Investigators
Fangliang He, Professor, Department of Renewable Resources, University of Alberta
Collaborators
Brett Bodeux, Information Coordinator at the ABMI
Co-Investigator
Shongming Huang, Research Scientist, Alberta Agriculture and Forestry
Xianli Wang, Research Scientist, Northern Forestry Centre, NRCan
Overview
The 46 million hectares of Alberta’s boreal forest provides essential goods and services in supporting the wellbeing of Albertans and plays a major role in balancing regional carbon (C) budget for climate change mitigation. However, it remains poorly understood how forest biomass C is distributed across Alberta’s boreal landscapes, how forest C changes over time in response to the impacts of intensified climate change, forest fires, and human disturbances, and what is the potential of the boreal forest as a sink for biomass C. This research will contribute to reducing uncertainties in C reporting in Alberta, providing scientific framework for understanding the mechanisms of forest biomass C change, and providing data and models for informing sustainable forest management and climate change mitigation policy.