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• Trends of basal area growth and mean height were studied in the period 1983–2020. • The study was made for 20 to 60 year old pines and spruces in Sweden. • On average, mean height at a given age of both species has increased by 2 m. • The basal area growth level was stable in the period. • Current trees are becoming taller and slenderer in Swedish forests. Changes over time in annual basal area growth and mean height for Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) and Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) over the period, 1983–2020 were studied using sample tree data from temporary plots recorded in the Swedish National Forest Inventory. The annual basal area growth was derived from the last measured full ring on increment cores. Using 20 to 60-year-old dominant trees, the mean height and annual basal area growth were examined as functions of tree, stand and site conditions, and trends were assessed mainly using residual analyses over time. A significant increase in mean height at a given age was found for both species, but the annual basal area growth level remained stable over the 38-year period. Currently, at a given age of 50 annual rings at breast height, the mean heights of pines and spruces increased on average by 10.1% (i.e. ∼2 m), compared to 50 year-old pines and spruces in the 1980s, and the increase was similar in the different regions. The results suggest that trees have become taller and slenderer in Swedish forests. Increasing tree height over time at a given age in Northern Europe has been documented in several reports and many causes have been suggested, such as changed forest management, increasing temperatures and nitrogen deposition. We suggest that elevated CO 2 in the air and improved water-use efficiency for the trees might also be strong drivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The objective of this study was to evaluate the concentrations of nutrients in stumps and coarse roots in Norway spruce, Scots pine and silver birch in Sweden, Finland and Denmark, and to assess how nutrient concentrations vary with site characteristics, stand age and root size. Concentrations of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg) and sodium (Na) in spruce, pine and birch stumps were assessed in eight sites across Scandinavia. Nutrient concentrations were higher in birch than in spruce and pine. In Sweden and Finland, the nutrient concentrations were generally higher at the southern sites than at the sites located in the northern part of the countries, except for P. For all nutrients, concentrations were significantly higher in the bark of the stump and roots than in the wood. Furthermore, nutrient concentrations increased significantly with decreasing root diameter. This study did not demonstrate any correlations with stand age. Further studies are needed to provide a broader picture of how the stump nutrient contents vary with site characteristics and forest management practices to provide a better foundation for nutrient balance calculations when setting up recommendations for stump removal. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Signatory countries to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its supplementary Kyoto Protocol (KP) are obliged to report greenhouse gas emissions and removals. Changes in the carbon stock of living biomass should be reported using either the default or stock change methods of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) under the Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry sector. Traditionally, volume estimates are used as a forestry measures. Changes in living biomass may be assessed by first estimating the change in the volume of stem wood and then converting this volume to whole tree biomass using biomass expansion factors (BEFs). However, this conversion is often non-trivial because the proportion of stem wood increases with tree size at the expense of branches, foliage, stump and roots. Therefore, BEFs typically vary over time and their use may result in biased estimates. The objective of this study was to evaluate differences between biomass estimates obtained using biomass equations and BEFs with particular focus on uncertainty analysis. Assuming that the development of tree fractions in different ways can be handled by individual biomass equations, BEFs for standing stock were shown to overestimate the biomass sink capacity (Sweden). Although estimates for BEFs derived for changes in stock were found to be unbiased, the estimated BEFs varied substantially over time (0.85–1.22ton CO2/m3). However, to some extent this variation may be due to random sampling errors rather than actual changes. The highest accuracy was obtained for estimates based on biomass equations for different tree fractions, applied to data from the Swedish National Forest Inventory using a permanent sample design (estimated change in stock 1990–2005: 420million tons CO2, with a standard error amounting to 26.7million tons CO2) Many countries have adopted such a design combined with the stock change method for reporting carbon stock changes under the UNFCCC/KP. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Mitigating climate change and securing a supply of energy may be achieved, in part, by substituting fossil fuels with bioenergy from stumps and roots. However, the use of stumps would result in a reduction of the carbon pool and thus, from a greenhouse gas emission perspective, there is a trade-off between using stumps for bioenergy and retaining them in the carbon pool associated with dead organic matter. The objective of this study was to show whether, from a carbon balance perspective and over the short and long-terms, stumps are more important as a source of energy that replaces fossil fuels, or as a carbon sink. The study was based on the estimated bioenergy potential of stumps for three harvest scenarios and the corresponding effects on stump–carbon sequestration, if stump harvesting had been practiced in Sweden during the period 1984–2003. Approximately 30,000 permanent plots from the Swedish National Forest Inventory (NFI) were used for estimates of bioenergy potential. For the scenario “Medium intensity”, the bioenergy potential was estimated to 51PJyr−1 (or 5.7TgCO2 yr−1). The corresponding carbon sequestration potential from the retained biomass in the ground was 15TgCO2 yr−1. Using these stumps and roots as bioenergy substituting coal would result in a reduction of emission from coal combustion of 5.0TgCO2 yr−1. In the short-term, the choice of coal or stumps as an energy source has a minor effect on the gross emissions to the atmosphere but the removal from an increasing stump–carbon pool would slightly favor the use of coal. However, this study indicates that the most effective way of achieving a net reduction of emissions in the long-term is to burn stumps. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Countries that are signatories to the UNFCCC and its supplementary Kyoto Protocol are obliged to report changes in carbon pools. These should include the pool of carbon held in tree stumps and roots but, to date, few countries have been able to report this or separate it from the dead-wood pool. The aim of this study was to develop a general system for estimating and monitoring changes in stump system carbon using data from a traditional National Forest Inventory. The system was derived using data based on measurements of carbon (biomass) in inventoried permanent sample plots representing all relevant classes of land-use. With this design it was possible to trace matched carbon at the level of individual trees or stumps back to land-use prior to the 1990 baseline year. Between 1990 and 2003 in Sweden, the average annual net sink of stump systems was estimated to amount to 6.7MtCO2 equiv.year−1 – comparable to the reported net sink in 2008 of about 15MtCO2 equiv.year−1 from the whole Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry sector, which excluded any carbon in stump systems. In 2003 the carbon stock of stumps and roots was estimated at 495MtCO2 equiv.; approximately five times that of the dead-wood pool as defined in Sweden, i.e. dead wood that mainly consists of boles. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change requests that reported carbon should be matched to land-use and traced back to the 1990 base year; however, the present study confirms expectations that most carbon in stumps and roots is found on Forest land. The minimum requirements for estimating the carbon pool in stump systems at a national scale using the proposed methodology are that there should be: (i) a consistent time-series of harvest data, usually estimated as merchantable volume; (ii) conversion factors from merchantable volume to stump system biomass at death; and (iii) a representative decomposition model. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The demand for quantifying the biomass of stumps and roots and the carbon stored therein is related to aspects of biodiversity, site productivity, atmospheric carbon cycling issues, and the demand for bioenergy. This, in turn, creates a need to develop high-quality tools for estimating biomass and carbon-equivalents in the ground. The objective of this study was to develop decomposition functions for quantifying the remaining dry weight of the biomass of individual stumps and their associated roots in Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.). The negative exponential model was chosen for this purpose, combined with a chronosequence approach, involving 99 stumps and their roots from three sites in Sweden. The results showed a relative decay rate of 4.6% annually for stump and root systems. Based on this rate, the time required for the loss of 50% (t 0.5) and 95% (t 0.95) of the wood is 15 and 64 years, respectively. Although there are many variables that affect decomposition, residual studies indicated that the remaining biomass could be predicted fairly accurately on the basis of the independent variables stump diameter and time. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: For estimating the amount of carbon (C) in dead wood, conversion factors from raw volume per decay class to dry weight were developed using three different classification systems for the species Norway spruce (Picea abies L. Karst), Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) and birch (Betula pendula Roth and B. pubescens Ehrh) in Sweden. Also the C concentration in dead wood (dry weight) was studied. About 2500 discs were collected from logs in managed forests located on 289 temporary National Forest Inventory (NFI) sample plots and in 11 strips located in preserved forests. The conversion factors were based on an extensive data compilation with a wide representation of different site-, stand-, species- and dead wood properties and were assumed to represent the population of fallen dead wood in Sweden. The density decreased significantly by decay class and the range in density for decay classes was widest for the NFI decay classification system, suggesting this to be the most suitable. The C concentration in dead wood biomass increased with increasing decay class and in average Norway spruce (P. abies) showed a lower C concentration than Scots pine (P. sylvestris). The average dead wood C store of Swedish forests was estimated to 0.85MgC/ha. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Vegetation assessments are a central part of many large-scale monitoring programmes. To accurately estimate change over time, consistent field methods are important. Presence/absence (P/A) sampling is considered to be less susceptible to judgement and measurement errors in comparison with visual cover assessment, although errors also occur with this method in complete species inventories. Few studies have evaluated surveyor consistency in P/A sampling with a limited list of species. In this study, the consistency of results in P/A sampling was evaluated in a field test, with different surveyors assessing the same sample plots. The results indicated a good consistency between surveyors and high accuracy according to a reference survey for many of the tested species, although some differences both between surveyors and in comparison with the reference survey were found. Comparing a group of surveyors with a larger experience of vegetation assessments with a group of surveyors with less experience indicated that the former were more accurate and consistent. No clear differences were found between different plot sizes tested. The main conclusion from the study is that P/A sampling is slightly affected by observer judgement bias, but that in comparison with the consistency of visual cover assessment observed in other studies, the difference between surveyors for many species is reasonably low. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Height growth of Norway spruce and Scots pine were assessed from 1986 to 2018. • Trees grew faster than before, especially after the millennium shift. • Increased growth correlated positively with temperature but not precipitation. • Growth increases may suggest higher forest value and shorter rotation periods. For boreal forests in colder climates, changes in environmental conditions are hypothesised to substantially affect ecosystem processes. In this study, trends of top height growth of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) and Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst) were analysed using permanent sample plot data from more than 300 long-term experimental sites distributed from temperate zones to the boreal forest conditions in Sweden. By regression analyses, the effects of temperature-sum and precipitation-sum on top height growth were assessed in the period 1986–2018. A significant upward temporal trend in height growth was observed for both species, with the trend more pronounced after the millennium shift. The magnitude of the annual relative height growth after the millennium was about 16.92% and 9.54% higher than expected, respectively for Scots pine and Norway spruce. A potential climate response on height growth was found for both species with temperature-sum positively correlated with top height growth. No significant effect of precipitation-sum on height growth was observed for either species. Our results suggest improved growing conditions and forest sites became more productive in response to increasing temperature in the northern temperate and boreal regions. The increasing growth trends may offer shorter rotation periods and increased forest value for Norway spruce and Scots pine, coupled with contributions of boreal forests to the emerging bio-economy and the regulation of global atmospheric carbon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fig. A.4. Three dimensional (3-D) relationship of canopy leaf area index (LAI), coefficient of tree diameter variation (CVD) and height-diameter (H-D) ratio in managed stands of Norway spruce and Scots pine. LAI decreases with increasing tree size heterogeneity. • Basal area and LAI relationship can be modelled using field and remote sensing data. • Tree size variation moderates basal area and LAI relationship. • Sentinel-2 has a potential to be used in growth models. • Structural complexity of managed forests can be described with indices of heterogeneity. The structure of contemporary managed forests is complex and deviates from experimental forests which are usually even-aged monocultures and single-storied. To apply theoretical growth and yield functions on managed forests, adjustments are required, especially for leaf area index (LAI) which is a key biophysical variable in process-based growth models. To asses this, the performance of canopy LAI in modelling the basal area (BA) of managed boreal forests dominated by Norway spruce (Picea abies (L). Karst) and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) was investigated by heterogeneity analysis. The study was based on the assumption that canopy LAI and BA are strongly related and are vital for estimating stand productivity and growth. Managed forests were represented by field data from the 2016 and 2017 Swedish National Forest Inventory (NFI) campaigns. Species-specific LAI conversion parameters were applied on the general plant area index (PAI) values from hemispheric fish-eye photos taken from the permanent and temporary NFI sample plots. The heterogeneity analysis was studied in two parts by: (a) ground-based stand structural heterogeneity (SSH) described by species composition, coefficient of tree diameter variation, tree social status and height-diameter ratio, and (b) spectral heterogeneity (SPH) by vegetation and textural indices developed from Sentinel-2. Species-specific final (with heterogeneity metrics) and base (without heterogeneity metrics) models were fitted for BA-LAI and BA-PAI relationships by nonlinear least squares and generalised additive regression functions, respectively. The performance of models was assessed by the root-mean-squared error (RMSE, m2 ha−1) and the relative root-mean-squared error (RelRMSE, %) metrics. For both species, BA-LAI final models (FMs) accounting for heterogeneity resulted in larger explained variance than the base models (BMs). Compared with the BMs, FMs with SSH reduced the variance by 55% in Norway spruce (RMSE = 3.33, RelRMSE = 15.39) and 43% in Scots pine (RMSE = 3.70, RelRMSE = 17.38). The fit between BA-LAI with SPH also showed an improvement for Norway spruce (RMSE = 5.56) and Scots pine (RMSE = 5.66) over the BMs, suggesting the potential use of Sentinel-2 in future growth models. The results of the study suggest that in growth models when extrapolating theoretical growth functions to managed forests, there is a need to calibrate the models with the forest structural heterogeneity. This is important for drawing realistic conclusions from growth and yield modelling of managed stands of Norway spruce and Scots pine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]