Chen, Hua (School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, Phone: 334-844-1057; Fax: 334-844-1084; Email: chenhua@auburn.edu)

Effects of cropland abandonment and forest regrowth on terrestrial carbon storage in Southeastern US

Hua Chen *, Hanqin Tian, Chi Zhang, Mingliang Liu, Shufen Pan

Southeast is thought to be the largest carbon sink across the six major bioclimatic regions of the conterminous United States.� Cropland abandonment and forest regrowth are two potentially important factors to be responsible for this carbon sink.� The objective of this study is to examine how land uses change, especially cropland abandonment and forest regrowth, on terrestrial carbon storage in southeastern US.� We have compiled and developed the historical annual cropland gridded data set of southeastern US between 1850 and 2000 with a spatial resolution of 4 km.� This data set has been used as input of the Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (TEM) to simulate land use effects on carbon fluxes and storage in the region.� According to the preliminary analysis, our results indicate that, from 1850 to 2000, cropland area decreased more than 50%, most of which was converted to forests.� Our preliminary analysis indicates that forest regrowth after cropland abandonment has resulted in a carbon uptake in the southeast, and the magnitude of the carbon sink varies over space and time.