Abstract:

Biomass burning has long been recognized to release a number of important trace gas species and particulate matter to the atmosphere. Forest fire is a main disturbance factor in forest ecosystems, and an important pathway decreasing vegetation and soil carbon storage. Large amount of carbonaceous gases in forest fire can release into atmosphere, giving remarkable impacts on the atmospheric carbon balance and global climate change. Scientific and effective measurements of the carbonaceous gase emission from forest fire are important in understanding the significance of forest fire in the carbon balance and climate change. In this paper, based on Daxing'anling forest fire statistics in 2010 and various forest types of fuel load data, we conducted field surveys and indoor control-burned experiments to determine a variety of measurement parameters, and estimated emissions of the total carbon and the main carbon-containing gas of the Daxing'anling Mountain forest fire in 2010 at the stand level, by applying forest fire emissions model. Results showed that the total carbon emission from the forest fires was about 117 870.62 t, and carbonaceous gases emissions of CO₂, CO, CH₄ and non-methane hydrocarbons(NMHC) were 379 606.01 t, 23 425.74 t, 1 081.46 t and 758.61 t, respectively. Our study indicated that burned area of coniferous and broad-leaved mixed forest accounted for 26.35%, however the carbon emissions accounted for only 13.79% of total emissions. The burned area of two Pinus pumila forests accounted for 29.92%, and the carbon emissions accounted for 50.35% of total emissions. We proposed the corresponding forest fire management strategy. Our studies indicated that the carbon emissions had an important impact on the regional carbon balance.

Key words: forest fires, carbon emissions, carbonaceous gases emissions, emission factor, forest fire management strategy