Changes in timber haul emissions in the context of shifting forest management and infrastructure

Healey, Blackard, Morgan, Loeffler Dan, Jones Greg, Songster Jon, Brandt, Moisen, Deblander

Description

Although significant amounts of carbon may be stored in harvested wood products, the extraction of that carbon from the forest generally entails combustion of fossil fuels. The transport of timber from the forest to primary milling facilities may in particular create emissions that reduce the net sequestration value of product carbon storage. However, attempts to quantify the effects of transport on the net effects of forest management typically use relatively sparse survey data to determine transportation emission factors. We developed an approach for systematically determining transport emissions using: 1) -remotely sensed maps to estimate the spatial distribution of harvests, and 2) - industry data to determine landscape-level harvest volumes as well as the location and processing totals of individual mills. These data support spatial network analysis that can produce estimates of fossil carbon released in timber transport. Results Transport-related emissions, evaluated as a fraction of transported wood carbon at 4 points in time on a landscape in western Montana (USA), rose from 0.5% in 1988 to 1.7% in 2004 as local mills closed and spatial patterns of harvest shifted due to decreased logging on federal lands. Conclusion The apparent sensitivity of transport emissions to harvest and infrastructure patterns suggests that timber haul is a dynamic component of forest carbon management that bears further study both across regions and over time. The monitoring approach used here, which draws only from widely available monitoring data, could readily be adapted to provide current and historical estimates of transport emissions in a consistent way across large areas.

Informations

• Publié par: biomed
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 232
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Carbon Balance and Management

BioMedCentral

Open Access Research Changes in timber haul emissions in the context of shifting forest management and infrastructure 1 12 3 Sean P Healey*, Jock A Blackard, Todd A Morgan, Dan Loeffler, 3 22 1 Greg Jones, Jon Songster, Jason P Brandt, Gretchen G Moisenand 1 Larry T DeBlander

1 Address: USForest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Inventory, Monitoring and Analysis Program, 507 25thSt., Ogden, UT, 84401, USA, 2 3 Bureau of Business and Economic Research, School of Business Administration, University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812, USA andUS Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Human Dimensions Program, 800 E. Beckwith Ave, Missoula, MT 59801, USA

Email: Sean P Healey*  [e-mail]; Jock A Blackard  [e-mail]; Todd A Morgan  [e-mail]; Dan Loeffler  [e-mail]; Greg Jones  [e-mail]; Jon Songster  [e-mail]; Jason P Brandt  [e-mail]; Gretchen G Moisen  [e-mail]; Larry T DeBlander  [e-mail] * Corresponding author

Published: 29 October 2009Received: 7 August 2009 Accepted: 29 October 2009 Carbon Balance and Management2009,4:9 doi:10.1186/1750068049 This article is available from: http://www.cbmjournal.com/content/4/1/9 © 2009 Healey et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract Background:Although significant amounts of carbon may be stored in harvested wood products, the extraction of that carbon from the forest generally entails combustion of fossil fuels. The transport of timber from the forest to primary milling facilities may in particular create emissions that reduce the net sequestration value of product carbon storage. However, attempts to quantify the effects of transport on the net effects of forest management typically use relatively sparse survey data to determine transportation emission factors. We developed an approach for systematically determining transport emissions using: 1) remotely sensed maps to estimate the spatial distribution of harvests, and 2)  industry data to determine landscapelevel harvest volumes as well as the location and processing totals of individual mills. These data support spatial network analysis that can produce estimates of fossil carbon released in timber transport. Results:Transportrelated emissions, evaluated as a fraction of transported wood carbon at 4 points in time on a landscape in western Montana (USA), rose from 0.5% in 1988 to 1.7% in 2004 as local mills closed and spatial patterns of harvest shifted due to decreased logging on federal lands. Conclusion:The apparent sensitivity of transport emissions to harvest and infrastructure patterns suggests that timber haul is a dynamic component of forest carbon management that bears further study both across regions and over time. The monitoring approach used here, which draws only from widely available monitoring data, could readily be adapted to provide current and historical estimates of transport emissions in a consistent way across large areas.

Background Significant amounts of carbon may be stored in harvested wood products. In the United States, for example, remov

als of atmospheric carbon due to changes in forest prod uct pools are currently on the order of 50 Tg C per year [1,2]. However, the management activity needed to trans

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