ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the effects of forest management actions, mainly silvicultural treatments, on soil carbon. It investigates the possible depletion of site nutrient capital as a result of forest management activities, and carbon measurements that were later overlain on the existing design. The chapter assesses the effects of forest management practices on soil carbon with an eye to constructing a carbon budget, then the variable of interest is the size of the carbon pool, not the concentration of carbon. Few prescribed-fire studies specifically designed to measure changes on soil carbon exist, and wildfire studies, by their nature, must rely on paired-plot and chronosequence approaches and frequently lack the necessary replication for strong statistical treatment. While forest fertilization may increase soil carbon pools, when looking at carbon from a sequestration point of view, the entire carbon cycle must be considered as well as cycles of other greenhouse gases.
