The Contribution of Managed Forestry and the Driving Variables in Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation

About this Research Topic

Background

Forests are particularly significant to address the impacts of climate change. Forest soils and vegetation absorb greenhouse gases (GHGs), store large amounts of carbon (C) and regulate water flows and nutrients, but may also be a source of key GHGs such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O).
Appropriate forest management could increase climate change mitigation potential by enhancing C sequestration and uptaking atmospheric CH4 by the soils while decreasing other GHG emissions.

Similarly, strategic management practices could enhance adaptation to climate change by facilitating resilience to its increasingly frequent/extreme weather events such as heavy rains, heat waves, fire, drought, hurricanes, windstorms, insect invasions, and litter input.

This special issue is aiming to identify how forest ecosystems may transform with changes in edaphic and climate change factors and contribute to global change. A better understanding of the mechanisms responsible for altering carbon balance is also a key to predicting the shifts occurring in the ecosystems and thereby adopting and implementing management practices.

Authors are welcome to submit original research articles and review papers covering the following themes, but are not limited to:

- Assessment of edaphic and climate change factors on mitigation (e.g. C sequestration and GHG balance) and adaptation under elevated atmospheric temperature and CO2 level, altered precipitation and extreme weather events, insect invasions, and increased litterfall.
- Identification of the main drivers of C sequestration, CH4 oxidation and N2O emissions in forest ecosystems referring particularly to soil and environmental conditions, vegetation types and relevant others, and their contribution to balance and offset GHGs linking to mitigate climate change and adaptation.
- Understanding of functional relations between microbiological diversity and forest ecosystem processes on C balance and nutrient availability across climatic zones and forest types, and their contribution to global change.
- Recommendations of appropriate management practices while maintaining biodiversity to climate change mitigation and adaptation in different forest types (e.g. afforestation, deforestation and land use change).

Keywords: Climate change mitigation and adaptation, C sequestration, CH4 uptake, N2O emissons, forest management

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