Climate Smart Forestry in the Southern United States

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The Climate Smart Forestry (CSF) was pioneered in 2015 and has been generating increasing interest since then. CSF is a targeted approach or strategy to increase the climate benefits from forests and the forest sector, in a way that creates synergies with other needs related to forests. By doing this, greater support can be generated for climate mitigation measures. The approach acknowledges that there is no one-size-fits-all toolkit to cover all circumstances, but rather measures have to be tailored according to regional characteristics and institutions. Therefore, this is a study to understand CSF of increasing forest carbon storage to combat rising atmospheric carbon or climate change mitigation in the Southern United States. The results show that how traditional plantation practices have aided increased forest carbon, how forest products can benefit carbon storage outside of the stand, and highlight additional avenues for CSF research.

I think this study is a progress by deepening and expanding studies focused on reducing and/or removing greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate climate change and active forest management aiming to sustainably increase productivity. Generally, some revision suggestions are listed below:

1) Introduce the researchers' studies of forestry on climate change as background in INTRODUCTION section .

2) Discuss your research contribution to greenhouse gas emissions reduction from the perspective of climate change.

Specific revision suggestions are listed below:

1) Introduce the facts of your findings in 'Abstract' rather than using 'how...'

2) Add a  map to illustrate Southern forestry distribution in United States.

Author Response

We thank Reviewer 1 for their thoughtful comments. Please see attached. 

-N.S.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript submitted by Shephard et al. titled “CLIMATE SMART FORESTRY IN THE SOUTHERN UNITED STATES” is a timely and comprehensive review of the current state of CSF, mostly in southern USA. I find the topic very relevant for the current development of forest ecosystems under climate change. The presenting form of the review is original and very well composed. Paper is easily readable for both scientists and forestry professionals. The arguments and conclusion within the review are consistent with the recent research in the field. The review paper is overall a great overview of efficiency of management practices and timber products to store carbon. Review also shortly explores impact of remote sense technologies on data acquisition strategies. I am just wondering if the name of the paper should not rather be CLIMATE SMART FORESTRY OF LOBLOLLY PINE  IN THE SOUTHERN UNITED STATES.

Minor comments:

Figure captions should be under the figures, not above.

Line 25: Can you include the total area/volume percentage of loblolly pine in the area of interest?

Line 368: The link does not work. Please check it out.

Line 539: Maybe rather carbon sequestration, carbon influx or carbon sink?

 

Author Response

We thank Reviewer 2 for their thoughtful comments. Please see attached. 

-N.S.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf