Lectures by senior environmental assessment specialists at SLU

Environmental monitoring of forests and soil for international commitments related to climate change

Lecturer: Mattias Lundblad, researcher at the Department of Soil and Environment, SLU.

Summary

SLU's inventory of greenhouse gases plays an important role when following up climate strategies and agreements. Long-term environmental monitoring is essential to meet national environmental goals and international reporting requirements. Continuous development of methods through research is needed to capture society's constantly changing needs and demands. In his lecture, Mattias Lundblad talks about the work behind the climate reporting for land use and forests and the future development of the reporting.

SLU compiles Sweden's reporting of emissions and removals of greenhouse gases from land use and forestry (LULUCF sector) to the UN Climate Convention (UNFCCC) and the EU.

The reporting is used to follow up the development of emissions and removals from land use and forestry against the commitments to reduce emissions that the countries have undertaken under the UN's global Paris Agreement. The distribution of the EU's commitment within the Paris Agreement and the reporting requirements for EU member states are regulated in a number of EU regulations.

The reporting of the LULUCF sector includes changes in soil and forest carbon stocks and emissions of other greenhouse gases from all cultivated land in Sweden, corresponding to 74 percent of the Swedish land and freshwater area. The most important data for calculating emissions and removals comes from SLU's environmental monitoring of forests and soil (The National Forest Inventory, the Swedish Forest Soil Inventory and the Soil and crop inventory).

Forests and soil naturally absorb and emit greenhouse gases, such as when carbon dioxide is absorbed in connection with photosynthesis and is released during natural decomposition or when forests are felled. In general, Swedish forests and soil absorb more carbon from the atmosphere than is released. This means that the carbon stock increases in forests and land, a net uptake or a net removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The latest report shows that the largest net uptake of carbon occurs in living tree biomass and mineral soil on forest land, but also through the storage of carbon in long-lived wood products. The largest net release of carbon into the atmosphere comes from drained peatland on forest land or agricultural land. Emissions also occur when forest and agricultural land are exploited and the carbon bound in biomass and soil is released.

The documents from the National Forest Inventory and the Swedish Forest Soil Inventory have been used together with various datasets with a spatial resolution to produce maps of carbon stocks and changes in carbon stocks. Such data can be useful for calculating the effect on the carbon balance of exploitation or when wanting to identify areas for measures to preserve or increase carbon stocks.