Future Forests: Mitigation and Adaptation to Climate Change provides background on forests as natural and social systems, the current distribution and dynamics based on major biomes that set the stage for their role of forests in global systems, the nature of climate change organized by biomes, and detailed descriptions of mitigation and adaptation strategies. This book presents a foundational summary of the feedback between the effect of climate change on forests and the converse effects of forests on climate, leading to conclusions on how forest management needs to be dictated by climate change.
The book will be ideal for readers in the fields of climate change science, forest science and conservation biology, helping them develop a thorough understanding of the broad perspective of climate change on forests, the response of forests to these changes, and other climate-forest interaction potentials.
List of contributors
Acknowledgement
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. Climate change and variability overview
Chapter 3. Forests then and now: managing for ecosystem benefits, services to humans, and healthy forests across scales
Chapter 4. Nutrient limitation in global forests: current status and future trends
Chapter 5. Mitigation potential of forests: challenges to carbon accrual in the ecosystem
Chapter 6. Climate change and forest hydrology in future forests
Chapter 7. Forest disturbances
Chapter 8. Understanding climate change dynamics of tree species: implications for future forests
Chapter 9. Temperate forests
Chapter 10. Climate change and tropical forests
Chapter 11. Boreal forests
Chapter 12. Climate change and urban forests
Chapter 13. Forests as social–ecological systems
Chapter 14. Unknown tipping-points: a method for anticipating future forest disturbance risk
Index
Steven G. McNulty is a USDA Forest Service senior scientist, and the Director of the USDA Southeast Climate Hub located in Research Triangle Park, NC. He has a PhD in Natural Resources and has spent over 30 years researching environmental stress impacts and adaptive management options for forests, agriculture, and rangelands. Dr McNulty has co-authored over 250 publications on climate change impacts and ecosystem adaptation strategies. He has served as a US Congressional Fellow, Climate Change Chair of the North American Forestry Commission, and Expert on IUFRO and FAO Assessments. Dr McNulty is the recipient of the US Forest Service Distinguished Scientist Award. He is currently the principal investigator for the Updated Silvics of North America Project (USNAP).