Harnessing the potential of boreal forests against climate change !
Article taken from the FFGG.
With a grant of $8.2 million, researchers will use the forest-product-market system to mitigate the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Almost one-third of the world’s boreal forests are found in Canada and there are opportunities to better use these vast ecosystems to mitigate climate change. This is the belief of researchers from Université Laval, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi and Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, who propose to study in great detail the exchanges of carbon, water and energy between the atmosphere and the boreal forests in order to design a model to mitigate the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, while increasing the share of forest products on the markets. Their model will encompass the flows of carbon, water and energy not only in the forests, but also at the stage of harvesting the trees, processing them in factories and using them in society.
The project is ambitious, but the magnitude of the potential benefits has convinced the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Government of Quebec and many partners to invest $8.2M. Evelyne Thiffault, professor in the Department of Wood and Forest Sciences at Université Laval and researcher at the Centre de recherche sur les matériaux renouvelables, is in charge of the project. Her colleague François Anctil, professor in the Department of Civil and Water Engineering and researcher at CentrEau, co-directs the project. Ten principal investigators and about twenty collaborating researchers are brought together in this multidisciplinary team.
Read the full article published on Ulaval news by Jean Hamann