Johan Stendahl

Associate professor, Head of Department
Head of Swedish Forest Soil Inventory

Research area

My research is oriented towards the impact of land use on the green-house gas balance, the mineral nutrient supply of forest soils, and trends in the environmental status of soils. Applied methodologies include simulation of soil development by mechanistic models and the analysis of spatial and temporal trends using large scale environmental monitoring databases.

I also work with methods for up-scaling and mapping spatial soil information. I am the head of Swedish Forest Soil Inventory, which monitors the status of the Swedish forest soils and is used among other things to evaluate the Environmental Quality Objectives and for the Swedish reporting to the UNFCCC and the Kyoto protocol.

Research projects and activities

• Swedish Forest Soil Inventory (Swedish EPA). Head of inventory since 2010.
• 2020- A Swedish inventory of biodiversity in forest soils - sampling and DNA-analyses (Swedish EPA).
• 2017-2019: FutureBioEcon - Sustainable forest management; multifunctional forestry, European forest policy (ERA-Net, SumForest)
• 2017-2020: INVENT - Improving National forest inventory-based carbon stock change estimates for greenhouse gas inVENTories (ERA-Net, ERA-Gas).
• 2016-2017: Importance of carbon modelling for forest bioenergy assessments in Sweden/Finland (Swedish Energy Agency)
• 2014-2018: CLIMATE-LAND: Consequences of climate policies for multiple ecosystem services of semi-natural grasslands of the cultural landscape (KlimaForsk, Norway).
• 2011-2016: QWARTS - Quantifying Weathering Rates for Sustainable Forestry (Formas). Deputy WP leader.
• 2012-2015: Temporal aspect of the climate benefit of forest fuels analysed by LCA (Swedish Energy Agency & SLU:s programme on effects of stump harvesting). Project leader.
• 2001-2009: Heureka research programme: multi purpose decision support system for forestry (Mistra).
• 2007-2008: Verifiering av Sveriges klimatrapportering – utvärdering av olika modeller för att beräkna klimatets påverkan på markens kolförråd. (Swedish Energy Agency).
• 2004-2007: LUSTRA - Land Use Strategies to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions (Mistra).
• 2000-2004: AFFOREST: Afforestation management in north-western Europe - influence on nitrogen leaching, groundwater recharge, and carbon sequestration (EU FP5)

Duties

• 2022- Head of Department Dep. of Soil and Environment
• 2018-2019 Deputy group leader Biogeochemistry of Forest Soils

• Head of Swedish Forest Soil Inventory
• 2017-2020 Member of the board of environmental analysis at the Faculty of Forest Sciences.
• 2017-2020. Coordinator for the Climate Environmental Monitoring and Assessment programme at SLU (link).

Lindahl, B.D., Kyaschenko, J., Varenius, K., Clemmensen, K.E., Dahlberg, A., Karltun, E., Stendahl, J., 2021. A group of ectomycorrhizal fungi restricts organic matter accumulation in boreal forest. Ecology Letters 24, 1341-1351

Petersson, H., Ellison, D., Appiah Mensah, A., Berndes, G., Egnell, G., Lundblad, M., Lundmark, T., Lundström, A., Stendahl, J., Wikberg, P.-E., 2022. On the role of forests and the forest sector for climate change mitigation in Sweden. GCB Bioenergy 14, 793-813

Spohn, M., Stendahl, J., 2022. Carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus stoichiometry of organic matter in Swedish forest soils and its relationship with climate, tree species, and soil texture. Biogeosciences 19, 2171-2186

Karltun, E., Stendahl, J., Iwald, J., Löfgren, S., 2021. Forest biomass accumulation is an important source of acidity to forest soils: Data from Swedish inventories of forests and soils 1955 to 2010. Ambio

Högberg, P. Wellbrock, N. Högberg, M.N., Mikaelsson, H. Stendahl, J. 2021. Large differences in plant nitrogen supply in German and Swedish forests – Implications for management. Forest Ecology and Management, Volume 482.

Stendahl, J., Berg, B., Lindahl, B.D., 2017. Manganese availability is negatively associated with carbon storage in northern coniferous forest humus layers. Scientific Reports 7, 15487

Gamfeldt, L., Snäll, T., Bagchi, R., Jonsson, M., Gustafsson, L., Kjellander, P., Ruiz-Jaen, M.C., Fröberg, M., Stendahl, J., Philipson, C.D., Mikusinski, G., Andersson, E., Westerlund, B., Andren, H., Moberg, F., Moen, J., Bengtsson, J. 2013. Higher levels of multiple ecosystem services are found in forests with more tree species. Nature Communications 4, 1340.

Stendahl, J., Akselsson, C., Melkerud, P.-A. Belyazid, S. 2013. Pedon-scale silicate weathering in forest soils in different time scales; comparing concepts and weathering rates from the PROFILE model and the depletion method. Geoderma 211–212, 65–74.

Link to all publications by Johan Stendahl