Grant: Alliance Grants

Canada's forests cover ~40% or 397 Mha of the country's surface area. A large portion of these forests (~230 Mha) are managed or plantation/afforested forests, which has enormous potential to sequester and store atmospheric carbon to offset anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Developing a clear understanding of how these managed forest ecosystems function and respond to climatic change and extreme events is urgently needed to maintain or further enhance their capacity to sequester atmospheric CO2 to achieve net-zero GHG emission goals. This proposal will develop new innovative approaches by integrating next generation of sensors, data monitoring and assimilation techniques and ecosystem models to determine the carbon uptake capabilities of Canadian managed forest ecosystems of different ages, species and management regimes (harvesting intensities and spatial patterns) in Eastern Canada. For this purpose, ground based (e.g. eddy covariance, soil CO2 efflux, biometric) and airborne (e.g. active and passive drone and satellite remote sensing) observations and datasets at eight flux tower sites in Ontario and Quebec will be utilized. The proposal will further develop and apply the next generation of Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASSIC) and coupled hydrologic-biogeochemical model, Modélisation Environmentale communautaire Surface and Hydrology system (MESH- CLASSIC) to simulate energy, water and carbon cycles at stand, ecosystem and regional levels. Proposal will provide regional scale estimates of carbon uptake of eastern Canadian forests and determine how it may be impacted by different scenarios of management, disturbances, and climate change and associated extreme events. Quantification of the carbon uptake capabilities of Canadian managed forests and their response to climate change will help planners to develop climate adopted forest management practices to achieve net-zero GHG emission goals. Further development of the CLASSIC model will help to advance predictive capabilities of Canadian regional and global climate models and provide an assessment tool for climate change policy development.