L.Vesterdal

Lars Vesterdal is senior scientist at the University of Copenhagen at the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management. During the recent years he has taken part in international work on the contribution of forests to mitigate greenhouse effects. Carbon storage in forest soils has been another central part of his research. This work focuses on carbon sequestration following changes in management and land use, particularly afforestation of former cropland, also including impacts on other environmental services such as water recharge and nitrogen retention.

Lars Vesterdal is responsible for the Danish reporting of carbon sequestration in Danish forest soils under UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol and contributes to the Danish intensive forest monitoring programme (ICP Forests under UNECE). Some of his research projects focus on carbon storage and dynamics in forest soils under different tree species and tree species mixtures (FP7 project FUNDIV-EUROPE ), methane and nitrous oxide emission from soils, and effect of land use change and management change on soil carbon sequestration (the FP7 project GHG-EUROPE).