Apparent Half-Life-Dynamics of Harvested Wood Products (HWPs) in Austria: Development and analysis of weighted time-series for 2002 to 2011

Harvested Wood Products (HWPs) are considered as means of carbon sequestration in the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has introduced the average (service) life multiplied by In(2) as so-called "Half-Life" (HL) to define the period for accounting carbon sequestration in wood products. This work investigates the dynamics of apparent HL and carbon content within three important categories of wood utilization (construction, furniture and packaging) considering sales on the wood product level in Austria for the period 2002 to 2011. Static HL for finished products derived from a literature study is used for upscaling information about carbon flows and associated HL to semi-finished HWP. From HL on the product level three category-His are derived. Averaged over 10 years, we find the following HIs: 33.0 years for construction, 8.5 years for furniture, and 1.4 years for packaging. For each category the shares of semi-finished HWP (sawnwood and wood-based panels) are determined. With this information, the average Kyoto-relevant HL for semi-finished HWP can be deducted. For the period 2002-2011, it is 9.5 to 16.6 years for sawnwood and 9.0 to 11.0 years for wood-based panels. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.