(Press-News.org)
DURHAM, NC – Reforestation in low- and middle-income countries can remove up to 10 times more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at lower cost than previously estimated, making this a potentially more important option to fight climate change, according to a study in Nature Climate Change.
Reforestation regrows trees on degraded lands where human activities removed original forests. Most current reforestation programs focus on tree planting alone, but the study estimates that nearly half of all suitable reforestation locations would be more effective at sequestering carbon if forests were allowed to grow back naturally.
“Wood markets are one key to large-scale reforestation,” said co-author Jeff Vincent, professor of forest economics and management at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment. “In more than half the areas we studied, timber plantations sequester carbon at a lower cost than forests that grow back naturally.”
Carbon sequestration captures and stores carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which reduces greenhouse gases and helps combat climate change. It can be done naturally by plants or through technology. In countries that are among the most affected by deforestation, but least resourced to reforest, determining how to allocate scarce funding to sequester the most carbon can be a challenge.
“A mix of planted and naturally regenerated forests is often the best way to balance society’s many demands on forests,” said Vincent. “That’s what we find for the case of carbon.”
"This more biodiverse method of reforestation is vastly underutilized,” said Jonah Busch, lead author of the study, who conducted the research as a Climate Economics Fellow at Conservation International.
Using a mix of the two reforestation methods – replanting the forest in some locations, and letting nature take its course in others - could sequester more carbon than using only tree planting or natural regeneration alone, the researchers calculate.
Carbon payments made by companies and other organizations looking to offset, or cancel out, their own greenhouse gas emissions are one way to incentivize reforestation.
“Carbon payments can provide a sufficient reforestation incentive on their own in some places,” said Vincent. “While the net cost of carbon sequestration can be reduced in other places by earning income from sustainable wood harvests.”
That net cost is the total expense involved in capturing and storing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, minus any savings or benefits gained from the process. If a project generates income from timber sales or wood products, for example, that brings down its net cost.
Which method is more cost-effective, natural growth vs. planting trees, in a given location depends on multiple factors. Variables include forest growth rates; proximity to natural seed sources for natural regeneration and wood-processing mills for plantations; the value of land in its current use, typically some form of agriculture; the costs of implementing each method, typically much lower for natural regeneration; and, for plantations, the frequency of timber harvests and the duration of carbon storage in wood products.
The research team modeled these factors for the two reforestation methods. The result is a world map showing which reforestation method is more cost-effective by location.
“We hope our map will help governments, companies and other organizations use their forest restoration budgets more efficiently,” said Vincent.
CITATION: Cost-effectiveness of natural forest regeneration and plantations for climate mitigation,” Jonah Busch, Jacob J. Bukoski, Susan C. Cook-Patton, Bronson Griscom, David Kaczan, Matthew D. Potts, Yuanyuan Yi, Jeffrey R. Vincent. Nature Climate Change, July 24,2024.
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WASHINGTON (July 24, 2024)--America's demand for products delivered to the doorstep has led to a dramatic increase in e-commerce and the warehousing industry.
A first-of-a-kind study now shows that people living in communities located next to these large warehouses are exposed to 20% more of a traffic-related air pollutant that can lead to asthma and other life-threatening health conditions.
“Increased truck traffic to and from these recently built large warehouses means people living downwind are inhaling an increased amount of harmful nitrogen dioxide pollution,” said Gaige Kerr, lead author of the study and an assistant research ...
A new study by scientists at deCODE Genetics, a subsidiary of Amgen, shows that sequence variants drive the correlation between DNA methylation and gene expression. The same variants are linked to various diseases and other human traits.
The research was published today in the scientific journal Nature Genetics under the title: The correlation between CpG methylation and gene expression is driven by sequence variants.
Nanopore sequencing is a new technology developed by ONT (Oxford Nanopore Technology), that enables us to ...
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Using trees as a cost-effective tool against climate change is more complicated than simply planting large numbers of them, an international collaboration that includes an Oregon State University scientist has shown.
Jacob Bukoski of the OSU College of Forestry and seven other researchers synthesized data from thousands of reforestation sites in 130 countries and found that roughly half the time it’s better just to let nature take its course.
Findings of the study led by Conservation International were published today in Nature ...
Scientists have discovered that the serrated edges of Komodo dragons’ teeth are tipped with iron.
Led by researchers from King’s College London, the study gives new insight into how Komodo dragons keep their teeth razor-sharp and may provide clues to how dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex killed and ate their prey.
Native to Indonesia, Komodo dragons are the largest living species of monitor lizard, averaging around 80kg. Deadly predators, Komodos have sharp, curved teeth similar to many carnivorous dinosaurs. They eat almost any kind of meat, from smaller reptiles and birds to deer, horses or ...
It is a scene many of us are familiar with: You're working on your laptop at the local coffee shop with maybe a half dozen other laptop users—each of you is trying to load websites or stream high-definition videos, and all are craving more bandwidth. Now imagine that each of you had a dedicated wireless channel for communication that was hundreds of times faster than the Wi-Fi we use today, with hundreds of times more bandwidth. That dream may not be far off thanks to the development of metasurfaces—tiny engineered sheets that can reflect and otherwise direct light in desired ways.
In ...
Open data practices in African research institutions will be bolstered thanks to a new online course for librarians to coincide with International Open Access Week (21-27 October 2024).
The Open Data Management Foundational Course – to be offered entirely free over four weeks by open data experts – is a direct response to calls to strengthen the research data management capacity of librarians in Africa.
The course will be facilitated by AfLIA, the African Library and Information Associations and Institutions, as part of an ongoing collaboration ...
IOP Publishing (IOPP) is extending the remit of its journal Progress in Energy by accepting high-impact original research articles alongside its well-recognised review programme. Progress in Energy is part of a developing new Progress In series™, that builds on the reputation of IOPP’s prestigious journal Reports on Progress in Physics and is designed to unite communities looking to advance and explore progressive research across the physical sciences.
Progress in Energy is a highly selective, multidisciplinary journal with a mission to publish groundbreaking ...
NEWPORT, Ore. – Hours after tagging an endangered basking shark off the coast of Ireland in April, researchers captured what they believe is the first ever video of a shark or any large marine animal being struck by a boat.
The data, collected by an activity measurement device similar to a FitBit and a connected camera, provided scientists a unique opportunity to learn more about the impact of vessel strikes on large marine animals, which is a rising concern around the globe, said Taylor Chapple, a shark researcher at Oregon State University’s Hatfield ...
In a study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, both chronic and new anxiety were associated with an increased risk of dementia. However, where anxiety had resolved, there was no association with dementia risk.
The study included 2,132 individuals with an average age of 76 years who were participating in the Hunter Community Study in Australia and who were followed for an average of 10 years. The presence of chronic anxiety and new onset anxiety were associated with 2.8- and 3.2-times higher risks of having dementia, respectively. Even ...
A recent randomized clinical trial published in Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology assessed whether injections of botulinumtoxin-A in calf muscles benefit children with cerebral palsy.
“We hypothesized that injections with botulinumtoxin-A in the calf muscles would make walking easier, caused by improved ankle joint functioning following spasticity reduction,” the authors wrote.
In the trial, one botulinumtoxin-A treatment was not superior to placebo in making walking easier (measured as a reduction in energy cost or improved walking capacity); however, there was some evidence of a delayed improvement in energy cost. Moreover, there was some evidence of a decrease ...
