United States Department of Carbon Storage in Forests Agriculture Forest Service and Peatlands of Russia Northeastern Research Station General Technical Report NE-244 V.N. Sukachev Institute of Forest, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences Abstract Contains information about carbon storage in the vegetation, soils, and peatlands of Russia. Estimates of carbon storage in forests are derived from statistical data from the 1988 national forest inventory of Russia and from other sources. Methods are presented for converting data on timber stock into phytomass of tree stands, and for estimating carbon storage in forest soils and peatlands in Russia’s administrative territories and natural ecoregions. Also included is information on the timber stock of Russia’s primary tree species and phytomass of forest vegetation, mortmass, and peat. Manuscript received for publication 13 September 1996 Published by: For additional copies: USDA FOREST SERVICE USDA Forest Service 5 RADNOR CORP CTR SUITE 200 Publications Distribution RADNOR PA 19087-4585 359 Main Road Delaware, OH 43015 April 1998 Fax: (614)368-0152 Visit our homepage at http://www.nena.org/NE_Home Contents Chapter 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Estimating Carbon Storage in Forest and Peatland Ecosystems Chapter 2. The Forest Resources of Russia ..................................................................................................... 3 2.1. Background 2.2. Forest Area and Growing Stock 2.3. Comments on the Published Database 2.4. Applying Statistical Data to Estimate Carbon Chapter 3. Classification of Forest Regions of Russia and Former U.S.S.R. Republics .................................. 12 3.1. Principles and Taxons of Forest Classification 3.2. Short Description of Bioclimatic Sectors and Forest Oblasts 3.3. Summary Chapter 4. Methods for Evaluating Phytomass and Carbon in Forest Communities ....................................... 24 4.1. Tree Stands 4.2. Understory and Other Vegetation 4.3. Phytomass of Krummholz and Shrub Communities 4.4. Coarse Woody Debris 4.5. Estimating Phytomass and Carbon Storage in Natural Ecoregions 4.6. Uncertainties and Errors Chapter 5. Estimating Phytomass and Carbon Storage in Vegegation of Unstocked and Nonforest Areas ....... 37 5.1. Unstocked Lands 5.2. Nonforest Lands Chapter 6. Storage and Territorial Distribution of Carbon in Vegetation of Russian Forests ............................ 38 6.1. Carbon in Vegetation of Forest Ecosystems 6.2. Geographic Distribution of Carbon Storage in Vegetation of Forest Ecosystems 6.3. Carbon Storage in Vegetation of Unstocked and Nonforest Areas Chapter 7. Soil Rockiness in Russian Forests ................................................................................................. 51 Chapter 8. Organic Carbon Storage in Soils of Russian Forests..................................................................... 54 8.1. Methodology for Estimating Carbon Storage in Soils 8.2. Territorial Distribution of Carbon Storage in Forest Soils of Natural Ecoregions 8.3. Carbon Storage in Forest Soils of Administrative Territories 8.4. Uncertainties and Errors Chapter 9. Biomass and Carbon of Forest Consumers ................................................................................... 65 9.1. Biomass and Carbon Content of Animals 9.2. Biomass and Carbon Content of Microorganisms in Forest Soils 9.3. Biomass and Carbon Content of Fungi Chapter 10. Carbon Storage in Peatland Ecosystems .................................................................................... 69 10.1. Methods for Estimating Storage of Phytomass, Peat, and Carbon 10.2. Carbon Storage in Peatlands of Administrative Territories and Ecoregions Chapter 11. Total Carbon Storage in Forests and Peatlands of Russia ........................................................... 77 11.1. Carbon Storage in Forest Fund Lands 11.2. Total Carbon Storage in Russian Forests and Peatlands Literature Cited ................................................................................................................................................ 82 Appendix ......................................................................................................................................................... 93 Tables Glossary CARBON STORAGE IN FORESTS AND PEATLANDS OF RUSSIA Edited by V.A. ALEXEYEV, V.N. Sukachev Institute of Forest, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences R.A. BIRDSEY, USDA Forest Service, Northeastern Research Station Preface This report is the result of the joint Russian-American research project 23-817, Carbon Budget in Boreal Forests, sponsored by the V.N. Sukachev Institute of Forest, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the USDA Forest Service’s Global Change Research Program. This research was initiated to evaluate contemporary carbon storage in the forests of Russia and other countries of the Earth’s boreal belt, and to assess past and future dynamics of carbon. The initial research results in this report include detailed statistical estimates of carbon storage in the forests and peatlands of Russia. More extensive results were published by the editors in a 1994 monograph entitled “Carbon in Ecosystems of Forests and Peatlands of Russia” (in Russian). Ongoing research addresses past and future carbon dynamics. The authors thank the USDA Forest Service’s Northeastern Research Station, the Krasnoyarsk Science Foundation, and the Russian Fund of Fundamental Investigations (Project 96-04-48344) for the financial support that made this research possible. The forest- inventory database of Krasnoyarsk Kray and the Republic of Yakutia (Sakha) was made available with the help of A. P. Vitaliev, former head of the Krasnoyarsk Forestry Administration, and A. P. Isayev, senior researcher at the Institute of Biology (Russian Academy of Sciences, Yakutsk Research Center). Assistance in the gathering of published data was provided V. D. Perevoznikova, E. A. Kaderov, T.K. Murina, A.V. Voloikitina, M.A. Sofronov, and L. V. Verevochkina. Preliminary artwork was supplied by I. A. Mikhailova. The authors also thank I. V. Semechkin, V.N. Gorbachev, O.G. Chertov, Daniel Kucera, John Hom, Tom Stone, and Elon Verry for their reviews of the manuscript, Rosemary Mullen for processing data in the tables, and Kelly O’Brian for supervising the translation of this report from Russian to English. Chapter 1. Introduction V. A. Alexeyev Increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and expected There are two methods for determining phytomass storage. climate changes have generated great interest in quantifying The first is to directly apply to regional calculations the content and dynamics of carbon in terrestrial and aquatic information about phytomass from research sample plots in ecosystems (Keeling et al. 1976; Woodwell and Houghton different biomes and their divisions. The National Forest 1977; Kobak 1988; Apps and Kurz 1993; Dixon et al. 1994). Inventories of Russia do not collect such data, so scientists Should the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere must rely on individual research or obtain this information double in the next 50 to 70 years, the average yearly from the literature. The first data on phytomass were temperature could rise by 3o to 5oC (Budyko 1972; Schneider published as part of the International Biological Program in 1990; Budyko et al. 1991). This warming would affect Russia in 1968-80. However, the number of sample plots was primarily the northern latitudes, with the strongest effects in insufficient for estimating carbon on a national or regional winter (Budyko et al. 1991). scale. Moreover, the data collected do not include important information on classifications such as forest age distribution, Climate warming to this extent could result in large-scale areas of burns, cuttings, and peatlands. global phenomena, for example, melting of polar ice and flooding of lowlands (Houghton and Woodwell 1989), more The second method for determining phytomass storage is to frequent fires, and droughts in many forest and agricultural combine two kinds of data in regional calculations: 1) statistical areas (Manabe and Wetherald 1987; Gleick 1988; Budyko et forest-inventory databases, and 2) databases for sample areas al. 1991). in different ecoregions of the country that include information on the fraction of stock of stand phytomass and lower layers of Because the vegetation of forests contains more than 75 the forest. In the first approach (Bazilevich 1993), data on percent of all carbon accumulated in the vegetation of sample-area phytomass are used as final parameters of terrestrial ecosystems (Olson et al. 1983), the role of forests productivity; in the second method, they are used to determine in global climate change is critical. Of particular interest to coefficients for converting the volume of timber stock researchers are the vast boreal forests of the Northern estimated by forest inventories to the stock of phytomass and Hemisphere. Models have been developed for expected carbon of forest ecosystems. transformations of boreal forests and their impact on changes in the carbon balance of forest ecosystems and the In 1993, we followed the second approach (Makarevskiy atmosphere (Apps and Kurz 1993; Emmanual et al. 1985; 1991; Birdsey 1990, 1992; and Kurz et al. 1992). Data from Bonan et al. 1992; Price and Apps 1993). For example, the statistical forest