The greenhouse gas impacts of burning post-harvest debris piles on Vancouver Island, BC

It is increasingly important to identify climate change mitigation opportunities at different scales within all sectors. Avoiding burning of post-harvest debris piles may be a viable regional-scale mitigation strategy within the forestry sector. I used the Carbon Budget Model of the Canadian Forest Sector to simulate alternate burning scenarios over 2008-2050 and greenhouse gas (GHG) consequences over 2008-2250. The results show that the delayed release of carbon (through decomposition rather than burning) provides a benefit that persists for decades to centuries. Burning debris also releases a fraction of the stored carbon as CH4 and releases N2O, both of which are more powerful GHGs than CO2. The quantity, form and timing of GHGs released are all critical components to address when evaluating the net climate impact of human activities. When applied across a large landscape over several decades, avoiding debris burning makes a meaningful contribution to a regional mitigation portfolio.