Buchkowski et al. (2026): Designing National Forest Inventories for Accurate Estimation of Soil Carbon Change
Robert W. Buchkowski, Alexander Polussa, Mark A. Bradford, IN: Global Change Biology, https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.70868
Detecting changes in forest soil carbon stocks is critical for compiling national carbon budgets, yet remains challenging due to high spatial variability and relatively small temporal changes. Here, they use data from Canada’s National Forest Inventory (NFI), which includes repeated measurements of organic and mineral soil horizons across 532 plots. They quantified within- and between-plot variability in soil carbon properties, assessed minimum detectable differences (MDD), and explored design improvements through simulations.