A Modelling System for Dead Wood Assessment in the Forests of Northern Eurasia
, Ekaterina Kapitsa 3, Florian Kraxner 1, Linda See 1, Anton Pyzhev 4, Roman Gordeev 4, Stanislav Fedorov 5, Vladimir Korotkov 6, Sergey Bartalev 7 and Dmitry Schepaschenko 1,2,*
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Brief Summary: This paper presents a methodology to inventory the amount of carbon contained in Coarse wooden debris in the Russian forests. This work is of importance considering the size of Russian forests. Such work will be increasingly important in the future for coutry national carbon inventories, especially forest countries, and carbon emission evolution in the context of climate change and IPCC reporting.
General concept comments: The article lacks a presentation of the geographical distribution of the analysed data . Short of this, it is hard to apprciate the breadth and the depth of data representativity as well as the regional coverage and accuracy.
Specific comments:
Lines 410-412, This sentence presents results of a Variable "FC" that has not been presented in the text. The variable presented in the previous paragraphs is "CF". The results presented appear to contradict the affirmation made to the effect that boreal species would show substantially higher Carbon fraction, reference 100 about temperate shows a value of 65 while reference 101 about boreal shows 60. This is unclear. Please clarify, through using consistent variable and reference results.
Lines 417-418. The sentence contained in those lines is not written in proper English and cannot be understood as is. Please consider rewriting.
Lines 550-553, This segment refers to limitations in the methods currentily in being able to predict future evolution of forest dynamics and forest perturbation regimes in the context of climate change. This should be further highlighted in the discussion and conclusion as a key element for future research of upmost importance.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Point 1: Brief Summary: This paper presents a methodology to inventory the amount of carbon contained in Coarse wooden debris in the Russian forests. This work is of importance considering the size of Russian forests. Such work will be increasingly important in the future for country national carbon inventories, especially forest countries, and carbon emission evolution in the context of climate change and IPCC reporting.
Response 1: Thank you for your comment
Point 2: General concept comments: The article lacks a presentation of the geographical distribution of the analysed data. Short of this, it is hard to appreciate the breadth and the depth of data representativity as well as the regional coverage and accuracy.
Response: The geographical distribution of analysed in situ data are now presented in the database (geographical coordinates of the plots, region and bioclimatic zone) and in the supplementary materials (column “N” in the table Tables A2-A5).
Point 3: Lines 410-412, This sentence presents results of a Variable "FC" that has not been presented in the text. The variable presented in the previous paragraphs is "CF". The results presented appear to contradict the affirmation made to the effect that boreal species would show substantially higher Carbon fraction, reference 100 about temperate shows a value of 65 while reference 101 about boreal shows 60. This is unclear. Please clarify, through using consistent variable and reference results.
Response: We fixed the misprinting to “CF”. References 100 and 101 are presented to illustrate large variability of CF between trees species and within the same species. Betula paperyferi is distributed in both boreal and temperate forests of Northern America, but is considered mostly as a boreal tree. The text edited correspondingly.
Point 4: Lines 417-418. The sentence contained in those lines is not written in proper English and cannot be understood as is. Please consider rewriting.
Response: a revision provided
Point 5: Lines 550-553, This segment refers to limitations in the methods currently in being able to predict future evolution of forest dynamics and forest perturbation regimes in the context of climate change. This should be further highlighted in the discussion and conclusion as a key element for future research of upmost importance.
Response: The obtained results have some limitations, which we described in a voluntary section “Uncertainties and cautions”. We added a statement on the limitation and further development in the Conclusion section.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Dead Woods plays an important role in the function of forest ecosystem, especially in the process of carbon cycle. However, there is still a lack of good methods to evaluate the amount of Dead Woods in forests. Based on a large number of survey data, the authors of this manuscript constructed a multi-dimensional regression equation of DWEF, which to some extent reveals the effects of age, site index, tree species, bioclimatic zone, etc., on DW quantity estimation. The results and the methods of this study have a good reference value for forest carbon dynamics evaluation.
The following are some comments and suggestions arising from the review, hoping to help the authors to improve this manuscript.
[1] The closing parenthesis mark after the reference [22] on line 51 should be at the end of line 52.
[2] The word "and" at the beginning of line 111 should be deleted.
[3] Lines 113 to 114 describe only two major processes. What is the third?
[4] In line 113, reference [50] should be followed by a closing parenthesis
[5] At the end of line 130, what is 20-60% relative to? The ratio of consumed CWD to forest gross growth or to total amount of on-ground forest fuel?
[6] In line 160, add the words "respectively "before references [52-55].
[7] Line 137, the number 3 in cubic meter should be the superscript
[8] Lines 246 to 248. For ease of understanding, it is suggested that the author give the necessary description of the abbreviations in the figure, for example, SI, SI Ht.
[9] From lines 272 to 303, it is suggested that the author simplify the description and present the Dead Wood Density data of different tree species and their references in the form of a table.
[10] Similar to the previous one, carbon fraction in dead wood does not need to be described in too many words from line 388 to line 419, but should be listed in the form of a table as far as possible. In addition, the two expressions “carbon fraction” and “carbon content” should be unified. I think they express the same meaning. It is just that the unit of the former is percentage %, while the latter is g kg-1.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Brief Summary: Dead Woods plays an important role in the function of forest ecosystem, especially in the process of carbon cycle. However, there is still a lack of good methods to evaluate the amount of Dead Woods in forests. Based on a large number of survey data, the authors of this manuscript constructed a multi-dimensional regression equation of DWEF, which to some extent reveals the effects of age, site index, tree species, bioclimatic zone, etc., on DW quantity estimation. The results and the methods of this study have a good reference value for forest carbon dynamics evaluation.
Response: thank you for your statement
Point 1: The closing parenthesis mark after the reference [22] on line 51 should be at the end of line 52.
Response: Corrected
Point 2: The word "and" at the beginning of line 111 should be deleted.
Response: Corrected
Point 3: Lines 113 to 114 describe only two major processes. What is the third?
Response: corrected. The third is “decomposition”.
Point 4: In line 113, reference [50] should be followed by a closing parenthesis
Response: Corrected
Point 5: At the end of line 130, what is 20-60% relative to? The ratio of consumed CWD to forest gross growth or to total amount of on-ground forest fuel?
Response: Clarified: steady ground fire consumes 20-60% of on-ground forest fuel, including litter and logs.
Point 6: In line 160, add the words "respectively "before references [52-55].
Response: corrected
Point 7: Line 137, the number 3 in cubic meter should be the superscript
Response: corrected
Point 8: Lines 246 to 248. For ease of understanding, it is suggested that the author give the necessary description of the abbreviations in the figure, for example, SI, SI Ht.
Response: We described the abbreviations.
Point 9: From lines 272 to 303, it is suggested that the author simplify the description and present the Dead Wood Density data of different tree species and their references in the form of a table.
Response: We added initial wood density data to the database. Lines 272-303 serve now as a database description. The aggregated results on the wood density are presented in the table 1.
Point 10: Similar to the previous one, carbon fraction in dead wood does not need to be described in too many words from line 388 to line 419, but should be listed in the form of a table as far as possible.
Response: carbon fraction in not the main focus of the paper. The literature review and discussion presented in the lines 390-420 lead to conclusion that it is possible to use one value for dead wood regardless tree species, region, or fraction. We shorten the text by removing extra references and data. We also added the carbon fraction data to the database.
Point 11: In addition, the two expressions “carbon fraction” and “carbon content” should be unified. I think they express the same meaning. It is just that the unit of the former is percentage %, while the latter is g kg-1.
Response: The terms “carbon content” and “carbon fraction” are merged and presented in the paper as “carbon fraction (CF)” now. We converted g kg-1 into percentage to uniform.
