Chair:  Dr. Brooke Hemming, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – National Center for Environmental Assessment, Global Change Research Program

Keynote:  Dr. Matthew Hurteau, Pennsylvania State University – School of Forest Resources

Description:  Depending on land use, vegetation type, and management, Department of Defense lands may act as overall carbon sinks or sources. In a carbon-constrained world, appropriate management of the carbon cycle to achieve carbon sequestration is an ecosystem service that needs to be considered. Land-use practices affect the rates of carbon cycling and storage within the soil and vegetation over both spatial and temporal horizons. The use of fire as a management tool is one such practice that will undergo increased scrutiny because of the trade-offs involved related to air quality, carbon cycling, and ecosystem resilience and its relationship to the continued provisioning of desired ecosystem services. This session explored the role of fire in the carbon cycle from the standpoint of the types of carbon emissions involved and their impact on climate change, emerging technologies to characterize and monitor these emissions, the life cycle of fire and its role in the carbon cycle of fire-adapted ecosystems, and best practices associated with the use of fire as a management tool to foster multiple desired ecosystem services.