Demonstration and Testing of the Improved Shelterbelt Component in the Holos Model

Copyright © 2020 Kröbel, Moore, Ni, McPherson, Poppy, Soolanayakanahally, Amichev, Ward, Laroque, Van Rees and Akhter. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s (AAFC) Canadian Agriculture Partnership (CAP), underlying data were originally funded through the Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Program (AGGP), also financed through AAFC’s CAP program.

Peer Reviewed

The shelterbelt component of Canada’s whole-farm model Holos was upgraded from an age-determined to a circumference-determined (at breast height) calculation using a multi-stem averaging approach. The model interface was developed around the idea that a shelterbelt could have multiple rows, and a variable species composition within each row. With this, the model calculates the accumulated aboveground carbon in the standing biomass and a lookup table of modeled tree growth is used to add estimates of the belowground carbon. Going from an initial interface that asks for the current state, the model also incorporates an option of past and future shelterbelt plantings. In order to test the model’s suitability, we measured diverse shelterbelts (evergreen, deciduous, shrub type) in southern Saskatchewan, Canada representing commonly planted woody species. By making use of Caragana, Green Ash, Colorado Spruce, Siberian Elm, and a mixed Caragana/Green Ash tree row, we tested how many tree circumference measurements would be required to yield a representative average. Later, these results were incorporated in the Holos model to estimate the accumulated above-and below-ground carbon in each shelterbelt type.