Is there a leeway to enhance carbon sequestration and stock capacity via forest management?

Forest management can aid buffuering anthropogenic climate change, thus playing a strategic role in the framework of the EU forestry-based carbon mitigation strategy, in particular in Central and Northern Europe. To what extent a diversified management portfolio would lead to effective changes in carbon sequestration potential at the tree level remains to be thoroughly assessed. We questioned the effect of multiple alternative management scenarios, i.e. based on the thinning-clear cut-replanting, on plant net primary productivity and carbon woody stocks under climate change by means of the biogeochemical forest growth model 3D-CMCC-FEM. The management interventions have been applied to three even-aged European forests included within the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP, httaps://www.isimip.org) and PROFOUND database. Our evaluation indicates that the tree capacity to absorb CO2 and stock it in the woody products has already reached an optimum under business as usual management conditions despite the different climate change scena-Forest management can aid buffuering anthropogenic climate change, thus playing a strategic role in the framework of the EU forestry-based carbon mitigation strategy, in particular in Central and Northern Europe. To what extent a diversified management portfolio would lead to effective changes in carbon sequestration potential at the tree level remains to be thoroughly assessed. We questioned the effuect of multiple alternative management scenarios, i.e. based on the thinning-clear cut-replanting, on plant net primary productivity and carbon woody stocks under climate change by means of the biogeochemical forest growth model 3D-CMCC-FEM. The management interventions have been applied to three even-aged European forests included within the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP, https://www.isimip.org) and PROFOUND database. Our evaluation indicates that the tree capacity to absorb CO2 and stock it in the woody products has already reached an optimum under business as usual management conditions despite the different climate change scenarios. Nevertheless, on the long term and under increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration, managed forests show a higher productivity than the unmanaged ones as long as the harvesting removals are of moderate intensity. Nevertheless, on the long term and under increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration, managed forests show a higher productivity than the unmanaged ones as long as the harvesting removals are of moderate intensity.