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Changes in carbon storage
and oxygen production in forest timber biomass of Balci
Forest Management Unit in Turkey between 1984 and 2006
Hacı Ahmet Yolasığmaz¹ and
Sedat Keleş²*
¹Artvin Çoruh University, Faculty of Forestry, Artvin,
Turkey.
²Çankırı Karatekin University, Faculty of Forestry,
Çankırı, Turkey.
*Corresponding author. E-mail:
skeles79@gmail.com.
Tel: +90 554 528 2986.
Accepted 22 June, 2009 |
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Decrease
in forest areas world wide and the damaging of its
structures is hazardous to human health, hinders and dries
up the spread of oxygen in the air and also destroys carbon
storage. In recent years, global warming and changes in
climates depending on the increase in the green house gases
have been affecting the whole world. The solution seeking,
initiated in the international arena with various treaties
and processes, has shown itself around the world and in our
country as the concept of planning and operation of the
forest sources. During the recent ten years in Turkey, in
forest management plans, the capacity of carbon storage and
the amount of oxygen production by the forest were initiated
to be calculated in the planning unit scale. The first
forest management plans were prepared and put into force in
1972 in Turkey, where the planned forestry began in 1963.
During the period of more than 30 years, neither the
structural changes in forests nor their values regarding
other functions have been examined enough. In this article,
using Balcı Forest Management Units in Borçka Township of
Artvin, forests are studied regarding their growing stocks,
timber increments, their capacities of carbon storage and
oxygen production. The basic management unit scale in the
study is standard and the evident standard parameters are
tree species, mixture and age class. Balcı Management Unit
underwent attacks from bark beetles in the past. After the
mechanical struggle, there have been structural changes in
forest ecosystem and the potentials of forests have varied
both in quality and quantity. Changes in forest ecosystems
during that time, not only through natural ways but also
through human activities, have been shaping the oncoming
forestry practices.
Key
words:
Carbon storage, oxygen production, forest management,
geographic information systems, land cover change. |
