Assessing mitigation strategies from forest ecosystems

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Forest ecosystems have a key role in the mitigation of climate change. In the last decades, forests absorbed more than 30% of yearly global CO2 emissions as organic carbon, in the different organic carbon pools (leaf, root, litter and soil biomass) by the photosynthesis process, or releasing into the atmosphere as respiration products.
In this context, the prediction of the evolution and growth dynamics of the forests including carbon and water fluxes, and in relation to forest management has become a primary objective. Increased atmospheric concentration of CO2, combined with increasing temperatures and size variations of ecosystem C pools, are responsible for year-to-year terrestrial ecosystem carbon flux perturbations, through the variation of both photosynthetic and respiration rates.

The 3D-CMCC FEM – Three Dimension Forest Ecosystem Model is a dynamic process-based model to simulate growth, carbon allocation, and forest dynamics. The model is based on the simulation of the main eco-physiological processes that govern gross and net primary production (GPP, NPP) and dynamics of carbon stocks,  structure of the population, of the biomass pools, soil and climatic conditions. The model has been recently used in two studies realized by the CMCC Foundation and published on Forests and Forest@.
A better understanding the carbon dynamics is fundamental in forecasting biosphere to atmosphere net carbon ecosystem exchange (NEE) and to determine seasonal and inter-annual variability of ecosystem C budgets. With this perspective, in the study published on Forests (among the authors, CMCC Foundation researchers Sergio Marconi, Tommmaso Chiti, Riccardo Valentini and Alessio Collalti from IAFES – Impacts on Agriculture, Forest and Ecosystem Services Division) developed the 3D-CMCC-PSM (3D-CMCC-Phenology and soil Model), a new version of the hybrid process based model 3D‐CMCC FEM where some biogeochemical processes are better simulated. 
The aim was to quantify biosphere to atmosphere net carbon ecosystem exchange (NEE) while developing a simplification of the soil carbon dynamics.
The 3D-CMCC-FEM model has been used also in a study published on Forest@ focused on the case study of a small mountain watershed in the Calabria region. The aim of this study was to to predict forest dynamics (growth, carbon and water fluxes). Carbon and water fluxes has been simulated considering also the effects of forest management.

For further information, read the integral version of the papers:
Marconi S., Chiti T., Nolè A., Valentini R., Collalti A.
The Role of Respiration in Estimation of Net Carbon Cycle: Coupling Soil Carbon Dynamics and Canopy Turnover in a Novel Version of 3D-CMCC Forest Ecosystem Model
2017, Forests, 8(6), 220, Special Issue Forest Soil Respiration under Climate Changing, DOI: 10.3390/f8060220

Collalti A., Biondo C., Buttafuoco G., Maesano M., Caloiero T., Lucà F., Pellicone G., Ricca N., Salvati R., Veltri A., Scarascia Mugnozza G., Matteucci G.
Simulation, calibration and validation protocols for the model 3D-CMCC-CNR-FEM: a case study in the Bonis’ watershed (Calabria, Italy)
2017, Forest@, 14: 247-256 (2017), DOI: 10.3832/efor2368-014

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