Carbon stocks in tree biomass and soils of German forests

Abstract

Close to one third of Germany is forested. Forests are able to store significant quantities of carbon (C) in the biomass and in the soil. Coordinated by the Thünen Institute, the German National Forest Inventory (NFI) and the National Forest Soil Inventory (NFSI) have generated data to estimate the carbon storage capacity of forests. The second NFI started in 2002 and had been repeated in 2012. The reporting time for the NFSI was 1990 to 2006. Living forest biomass, deadwood, litter and soils up to a depth of 90 cm have stored 2500 t of carbon within the reporting time. Over all 224 t C ha-1 in aboveground and belowground biomass, deadwood and soil are stored in forests. Specifically, 46% stored in above-ground and below-ground biomass, 1% in dead wood and 53% in the organic layer together with soil up to 90 cm. Carbon stocks in mineral soils up to 30 cm mineral soil increase about 0.4 t C ha-1 yr-1 stocks between the inventories while the carbon pool in the organic layers declined slightly. In the living biomass carbon stocks increased about 1.0 t C ha-1 yr-1. In Germany, approximately 58 mill. tonnes of CO2 were sequestered in 2012 (NIR 2017).