Post‐Soviet farmland abandonment,forest recovery,and carbon sequestration in western Ukraine |
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Authors: | TOBIAS KUEMMERLE PONTUS OLOFSSON OLEH CHASKOVSKYY MATTHIAS BAUMANN KATARZYNA OSTAPOWICZ CURTIS E. WOODCOCK RICHARD A. HOUGHTON PATRICK HOSTERT WILLIAM S. KEETON VOLKER C. RADELOFF |
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Affiliation: | 1. Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin‐Madison, 1630 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA;2. Earth System Analysis, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), PO Box 60 12 03, Telegraphenberg A62, D‐14412 Potsdam, Germany;3. Department of Geography and Environment, Boston University, 675 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215, USA;4. Institute of Forest Management, Ukrainian National Forestry University, vul. Gen. Chuprynky, 103, 79031 Lviv, Ukraine;5. Department of GIS, Cartography and Remote Sensing, Jagiellonian University Krakow, ul. Gronostajowa 7, 30‐387 Kraków, Poland;6. Woods Hole Research Center, 149 Woods Hole Road, Falmouth, MA 02540, USA;7. Department of Geography, Humboldt‐University Berlin Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany;8. Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Vermont, 81 Carrigan Drive, Burlington, VT 05405, USA |
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Abstract: | Land use is a critical factor in the global carbon cycle, but land‐use effects on carbon fluxes are poorly understood in many regions. One such region is Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, where land‐use intensity decreased substantially after the collapse of socialism, and farmland abandonment and forest expansion have been widespread. Our goal was to examine how land‐use trends affected net carbon fluxes in western Ukraine (57 000 km2) and to assess the region's future carbon sequestration potential. Using satellite‐based forest disturbance and farmland abandonment rates from 1988 to 2007, historic forest resource statistics, and a carbon bookkeeping model, we reconstructed carbon fluxes from land use in the 20th century and assessed potential future carbon fluxes until 2100 for a range of forest expansion and logging scenarios. Our results suggested that the low‐point in forest cover occurred in the 1920s. Forest expansion between 1930 and 1970 turned the region from a carbon source to a sink, despite intensive logging during socialism. The collapse of the Soviet Union created a vast, but currently largely untapped carbon sequestration potential (up to~150 Tg C in our study region). Future forest expansion will likely maintain or even increase the region's current sink strength of 1.48 Tg C yr?1. This may offer substantial opportunities for offsetting industrial carbon emissions and for rural development in regions with otherwise diminishing income opportunities. Throughout Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, millions of hectares of farmland were abandoned after the collapse of socialism; thus similar reforestation opportunities may exist in other parts of this region. |
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Keywords: | carbon flux carbon sequestration potential Carpathians cropland abandonment forest harvesting forest transition former Soviet Union land‐use legacies postsocialist land‐use change |
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