Article Quantifying Impacts of National-Scale Afforestation on Carbon Budgets in South Korea from 1961 to 2014 Moonil Kim 1,2, Florian Kraxner 2 , Yowhan Son 3, Seong Woo Jeon 3, Anatoly Shvidenko 2, Dmitry Schepaschenko 2 , Bo-Young Ham 1, Chul-Hee Lim 4 , Cholho Song 3 , Mina Hong 3 and Woo-Kyun Lee 3,* 1 Environmental GIS/RS Center, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Korea 2 Ecosystem Services and Management Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Schlossplatz 1, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria 3 Department of Environmental Science and Ecological Engineering, Korea University, Seoul 02481, Korea 4 Institute of Life Science and Natural Resources, Korea University, Seoul 02481, Korea * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +82-02-3290-3016 Received: 31 May 2019; Accepted: 9 July 2019; Published: 11 July 2019 Abstract: Forests play an important role in regulating the carbon (C) cycle. The main objective of this study was to quantify the effects of South Korean national reforestation programs on carbon budgets. We estimated the changes in C stocks and annual C sequestration in the years 1961–2014 using Korea-specific models, a forest cover map (FCM), national forest inventory (NFI) data, and climate data. Furthermore, we examined the differences in C budgets between Cool forests (forests at elevations above 700 m) and forests in lower-altitude areas. Simulations including the effects of climate conditions on forest dynamics showed that the C stocks of the total forest area increased from 6.65 Tg C in 1961 to 476.21 Tg C in 2014. The model developed here showed a high degree of spatiotemporal reliability.