Land-Based Mitigation Technologies for Germany
As part of the LANDMARC deliverable “D2.1: National Narratives” the Germany team has been refining the technology focus of the case study.
Germany is a large and highly populated, highly developed country. Whereas agriculture is not its major economical activity, farming is well developed and highly technified. Land competition is an issue in Germany, as most of its territory is dedicated to productive activities. The LMTs considered in Germany are:
Peatland management: with some of its territory sharing similar characteristics to the ones in the Netherlands, challenges and solutions are also mostly identical. It is estimated that the rewetting of peat soils, together with expanded settlements, will decrease the area dedicated to conventional agriculture by 7% in 2050.
Avoided grassland conversion: 1.2 Mha of grasslands have been converted into croplands over the last 20 years in Germany. Only in 2018, 83030 ha of grassland were converted into croplands, resulting in an equivalent CO2 emission of 8.7 Mt CO2. Avoiding the conversion of grasslands enables to mitigate these emissions and to preserve natural areas.
Afforestation/reforestation: Afforestation and reforestation are promising LMT with high total carbon sequestration potential compared to other LMT. A total of 17.730 ha of mainly grassland was converted into forests in 2018 in Germany, but it faces land competition as the main challenge.
Forest management: The scenario by Oehmichen et al. (2018) and Böttcher et al. (2018) describe that forest management will focus more on nature conservation requirements like increased share of deciduous trees, elevated deadwood volume and lowered harvest rates. However, promoting more deciduous trees and old trees will have negative effects on the amount of harvested wood products and hence the carbon stored in long-lived wood products.
