Impacts of deforestation and land use/land cover change on carbon stock dynamics in Jomoro District, Ghana.

Tropical deforestation in the African continent plays a key role in the global carbon cycle and bears significant implications in terms of climate change and sustainable development. Especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, where more than two-thirds of the population rely on forest and woodland resources for their livelihoods, deforestation and land use changes for crop production lead to a substantial loss of ecosystem-level carbon stock. Unfortunately, the impacts of deforestation and land use change can be more critical than in any other region, but these are poorly quantified. We analyse changes in the main carbon pools (above- and below-ground, soil and litter, respectively) after deforestation and land use/land cover change, for the Jomoro District (Ghana), by assessing the initial reference level of carbon stock for primary forest and the subsequent stock changes and dynamics as a consequence of conversion to the secondary forest and to five different tree plantations (rubber, coconut, cocoa, oil palm, and mixed plantations) on a total of 72 plots. Results indicate overall a statistically significant carbon loss across all the land uses/covers and for all the carbon pools compared to the primary forest with the total carbon stock loss ranging between 35% and 85% but with no statistically significant differences observed in the comparison between primary forest and mixed plantations and secondary forest. Results also suggest that above-ground carbon and soil organic carbon are the primary pools contributing to the total carbon stocks but with opposite trends of carbon loss and accumulation. Strategies for sustainable development, policies to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, carbon stock enhancement (REDD+), and planning for sustainable land use management should carefully consider the type of conversion and carbon stock dynamics behind land use change for a win-win strategy while preserving carbon stocks potential in tropical ecosystems.

Stand age diversity (and more than climate change) affects forests' resilience and stability, although unevenly.

Stand age significantly influences the functioning of forest ecosystems by shaping structural and physiological plant traits, affecting water and carbon budgets. Forest age distribution is determined by the interplay of tree mortality and regeneration, influenced by both natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Unfortunately, human-driven alteration of tree age distribution presents an underexplored avenue for enhancing forest stability and resilience. In our study, we investigated how age impacts the stability and resilience of the forest carbon budget under both current and future climate conditions. We employed a state-of-the-science biogeochemical, biophysical, validated process-based model on historically managed forest stands, projecting their future as undisturbed systems, i.e., left at their natural evolution with no management interventions (i.e., forests are left to develop undisturbed). Such a model, forced by climate data from five Earth System Models under four representative climate scenarios and one baseline scenario to disentangle the effect of climate change, spanned several age classes as representative of the current European forests' context, for each stand. Our findings indicate that Net Primary Production (NPP) peaks in the young and middle-aged classes (16- to 50-year-old), aligning with longstanding ecological theories, regardless of the climate scenario. Under climate change, the beech forest exhibited an increase in NPP and maintained stability across all age classes, while resilience remained constant with rising atmospheric CO2 and temperatures. However, NPP declined under climate change scenarios for the Norway spruce and Scots pine sites. In these coniferous forests, stability and resilience were more influenced. These results underscore the necessity of accounting for age class diversity -lacking in most, if not all, the current Global Vegetation Models - for reliable and robust assessments of the impacts of climate change on future forests' stability and resilience capacity. We, therefore, advocate for customized management strategies that enhance the adaptability of forests to changing climatic conditions, taking into account the diverse responses of different species and age groups to climate.

Contrasting patterns of water use efficiency and annual radial growth among European beech forests along the Italian peninsula.

Tree mortality and forest dieback episodes are increasing due to drought and heat stress. Nevertheless, a comprehensive understanding of mechanisms enabling trees to withstand and survive droughts remains lacking. Our study investigated basal area increment (BAI), and δ13C-derived intrinsic water-use-efficiency (iWUE), to elucidate beech resilience across four healthy stands in Italy with varying climates and soil water availability. Additionally, fist-order autocorrelation (AR1) analysis was performed to detect early warning signals for potential tree dieback risks during extreme drought events. Results reveal a negative link between BAI and vapour pressure deficit (VPD), especially in southern latitudes. After the 2003 drought, BAI decreased at the northern site, with an increase in δ13C and iWUE, indicating conservative water-use. Conversely, the southern sites showed increased BAI and iWUE, likely influenced by rising CO2 and improved water availability. In contrast, the central site sustained higher transpiration rates due to higher soil water holding capacity (SWHC). Despite varied responses, most sites exhibited reduced resilience to future extreme events, indicated by increased AR1. Temperature significantly affected beech iWUE and BAI in northern Italy, while VPD strongly influenced the southern latitudes. The observed increase in BAI and iWUE in southern regions might be attributed to an acclimation response.

Integrating GEDI and Landsat: Spaceborne Lidar and Four Decades of Optical Imagery for the Analysis of Forest Disturbances and Biomass Changes in Italy.

Forests play a prominent role in the battle against climate change, as they absorb a relevant part of human carbon emissions. However, precisely because of climate change, forest disturbances are expected to increase and alter forests' capacity to absorb carbon. In this context, forest monitoring using all available sources of information is crucial. We combined optical (Landsat) and photonic (GEDI) data to monitor four decades (1985-2019) of disturbances in Italian forests (11 Mha). Landsat data were confirmed as a relevant source of information for forest disturbance mapping, as forest harvestings in Tuscany were predicted with omission errors estimated between 29% (in 2012) and 65% (in 2001). GEDI was assessed using Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) data available for about 6 Mha of Italian forests. A good correlation (r2 = 0.75) between Above Ground Biomass Density GEDI estimates (AGBD) and canopy height ALS estimates was reported. GEDI data provided complementary information to Landsat. The Landsat mission is capable of mapping disturbances, but not retrieving the three-dimensional structure of forests, while our results indicate that GEDI is capable of capturing forest biomass changes due to disturbances. GEDI acquires useful information not only for biomass trend quantification in disturbance regimes but also for forest disturbance discrimination and characterization, which is crucial to further understanding the effect of climate change on forest ecosystems.

The New Hyperspectral Satellite PRISMA: Imagery for Forest Types Discrimination.

Different forest types based on different tree species composition may have similar spectral signatures if observed with traditional multispectral satellite sensors. Hyperspectral imagery, with a more continuous representation of their spectral behavior may instead be used for their classification. The new hyperspectral Precursore IperSpettrale della Missione Applicativa (PRISMA) sensor, developed by the Italian Space Agency, is able to capture images in a continuum of 240 spectral bands ranging between 400 and 2500 nm, with a spectral resolution smaller than 12 nm. The new sensor can be employed for a large number of remote sensing applications, including forest types discrimination. In this study, we compared the capabilities of the new PRISMA sensor against the well-known Sentinel-2 Multi-Spectral Instrument (MSI) in recognition of different forest types through a pairwise separability analysis carried out in two study areas in Italy, using two different nomenclature systems and four separability metrics. The PRISMA hyperspectral sensor, compared to Sentinel-2 MSI, allowed for a better discrimination in all forest types, increasing the performance when the complexity of the nomenclature system also increased. PRISMA achieved an average improvement of 40% for the discrimination between two forest categories (coniferous vs. broadleaves) and of 102% in the discrimination between five forest types based on main tree species groups.