Water and Carbon Cycles and Their Coupling in Forest

A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Hydrology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2026 | Viewed by 728

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Ecology and Nature Conservation Institute, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing 100091, China
Interests: forest hydrology; forest ecology; plant water uptake; isotopic hydrology; climate change
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Ecology and Nature Conservation Institute, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing 100091, China
Interests: soil carbon cycle; biogeochemistry; microbial community; climate change
College of Resources and Environment, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China
Interests: isotopic hydrology; ecohydrology; landscape patterns and ecological processes; stable isotope in ecology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Water and carbon cycles play important roles in material and energy exchange in forest ecosystems. Under climate change conditions, shifts in environmental factors will inevitably trigger changes in water and carbon cycles, thereby affecting the carbon source/sink and evapotranspiration processes of forests. A comprehensive evaluation of the carbon and water cycles in forests and their systems is, therefore, of the utmost importance for understanding their water and carbon budgets. Today, many challenges still remain in this field. For example, in forests, plant and soil carbon cycles and their drivers need to be further explored, especially in terms of evaluating their responses to climate change. Moreover, given climate change and the large heterogeneity of vegetation and soil in different regions, how to strengthen research on carbon/water cycle at the site level and expand it to regional and even global scales is a topic that needs further exploration. In addition, the carbon–water coupling process is also an urgent issue that must be solved. Therefore, the aim of this Special Issue is to collect recent findings related to water and carbon cycles and their couplings in forest systems. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • The assessment of vegetation and soil carbon storage;
  • Carbon cycle and its response to climate change;
  • The precipitation interception capacity of vegetation and soil;
  • Plant water use strategies and efficiency;
  • Evapotranspiration from forest ecosystems;
  • Carbon–water coupling mechanisms.

Dr. Beibei Zhang
Dr. Futing Liu
Dr. Jian Wang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • forest ecosystem
  • carbon cycle
  • water cycle
  • carbon–water coupling
  • climate change

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

21 pages, 3013 KB  
Article
Determining Early Warning Thresholds to Detect Tree Mortality Risk in a Southeastern U.S. Bottomland Hardwood Wetland
by Maricar Aguilos, Jiayin Zhang, Miko Lorenzo Belgado, Ge Sun, Steve McNulty and John King
Forests 2025, 16(8), 1255; https://doi.org/10.3390/f16081255 - 1 Aug 2025
Viewed by 505
Abstract
Prolonged inundations are altering coastal forest ecosystems of the southeastern US, causing extensive tree die-offs and the development of ghost forests. This hydrological stressor also alters carbon fluxes, threatening the stability of coastal carbon sinks. This study was conducted to investigate the interactions [...] Read more.
Prolonged inundations are altering coastal forest ecosystems of the southeastern US, causing extensive tree die-offs and the development of ghost forests. This hydrological stressor also alters carbon fluxes, threatening the stability of coastal carbon sinks. This study was conducted to investigate the interactions between hydrological drivers and ecosystem responses by analyzing daily eddy covariance flux data from a wetland forest in North Carolina, USA, spanning 2009–2019. We analyzed temporal patterns of net ecosystem exchange (NEE), gross primary productivity (GPP), and ecosystem respiration (RE) under both flooded and non-flooded conditions and evaluated their relationships with observed tree mortality. Generalized Additive Modeling (GAM) revealed that groundwater table depth (GWT), leaf area index (LAI), NEE, and net radiation (Rn) were key predictors of mortality transitions (R2 = 0.98). Elevated GWT induces root anoxia; declining LAI reduces productivity; elevated NEE signals physiological breakdown; and higher Rn may amplify evapotranspiration stress. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis revealed critical early warning thresholds for tree mortality: GWT = 2.23 cm, LAI = 2.99, NEE = 1.27 g C m−2 d−1, and Rn = 167.54 W m−2. These values offer a basis for forecasting forest mortality risk and guiding early warning systems. Our findings highlight the dominant role of hydrological variability in ecosystem degradation and offer a threshold-based framework for early detection of mortality risks. This approach provides insights into managing coastal forest resilience amid accelerating sea level rise. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water and Carbon Cycles and Their Coupling in Forest)
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