Status and development of forest sites on organic soils in Germany

Background and Objective

As party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Germany has to report national greenhouse gas inventories. Emissions reporting is carried out for 5 sectors including land use, land use change and forestry.

The inventory reports for forest on CO₂ emissions from biomass on organic soils as well as on emissions from drainage of these soils. In terms of completeness and level of detail, Germany´s current reporting has to be improved with regard to the calculation of the emission factors for biomass on organic soils as it actually does not explicitly take into account any specifics of forest on organic soils.

The objective of the project is to improve the estimates of emissions from forests on organic soils and to determine options for further management and emission reduction and their consequences that are relevant to climate protection.

The results should also be used to provide forest owners knowledge (since about 50% of the forest area on organic soils is privately owned), about climate-smart optimizations of their forests but also to inform about impacts on forest management options.

Target Group

Forest science and forest owners

Approach

In a first step, data from the national forest inventory are combined with data on organic soils in order to obtain an overview of how much forest area occurs in Germany on organic soils.

In a second step, sampling points from the national forest inventory should be used to clarify how much of this forest area is currently actually drained and/or in a near-natural state.

Furthermore, it is to be determined how the growth of trees developes on organic soils and how trees react to changes in the organic soils properties.

These results are to be collected, analyzed and presented on a national level with additional information from existing programs and projects of the Waldklimafonds as well as activities on renaturation measures for organic soils.