| Abstract
| - The biomass of forests in South Korea has significantlyincreased during the last 30 years because of a nationalreforestation project and forest management. Despite thehigh potential of this biomass for sequestering atmosphericcarbon dioxide, little effort has been devoted to identifyingthe factors affecting the rate of carbon uptake by forestsin Korea. Recently, we reported that Korean forestshave a higher carbon uptake rate (1.5 Mg C ha-1 year-1)than those of North America, Europe, and China (). In thisstudy, as a follow-up to that work, we examine thedistributions of total forest carbon, carbon density, andcarbon uptake rate at the province and subprovince levelsin Korea and elucidate the relationships between forestand climatic variables within these distributions. The provincescan be classified into three distinct groups according totheir carbon uptake rate and forest age class: groupA (Gyeonggi, Chungbuk, Chungnam), group B (Gyeongbuk,Gyeongnam, Jeonbuk, Jeonnam), and group C (Gangwon,Jeju). When all forest and climatic variables are considered,the provinces Gangwon and Jeju in group C are foundto belong to distinct groups. The rate of carbon uptake ineach province is not significantly correlated to mostforest and climatic variables but is highly correlated toforest age class. A multivariate statistical analysis alsosupports our conclusion that forest age class is the majorfactor affecting the current distribution of the rate ofcarbon uptake in Korea. We conclude that for severaldecades Korean forests will have a high capacity forsequestering carbon dioxide.
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