Burying Wood Debris Can Help Slow Global Warming, Study Shows

UMD Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Professor Ning Zeng co-authored new research on a simple way to capture carbon dioxide, a planet-warming gas. 

Taking carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the atmosphere is essential for slowing global warming, but current methods can be costly or technically challenging. In the quest for alternatives, a research team including a University of Maryland climate scientist identified a low-tech solution with significant potential: burying wood debris that might otherwise be left to rot, a process that releases CO2 back into the atmosphere.

Published in the journal Nature Geoscience, the new study estimated the carbon capture potential of burying wood from managed forests—lands altered by humans, especially through logging operations. The team’s models found that burying this woody biomass over the next 76 years could remove between 770 and 937 gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere, or between 10.1 and 12.3 gigatons of CO2 per year. 

Doing this would reduce global temperatures up to 0.76 degrees Fahrenheit, and if the U.S. buried 66% of the wood debris from its managed forests, net-zero emissions could be reached by 2050, according to the researchers.

“Based on my knowledge, this is the most effective and the least expensive—and possibly the most sustainable—way to capture carbon,” said study first author and Cornell University researcher Yiqi Luo. “There’s huge potential.”

Luo said this new study was partly inspired by previous research from his co-author Ning Zeng, a UMD Atmospheric and Oceanic Science professor who has conducted theoretical analyses and experiments on wood preservation in soil. Zeng said these new findings are “broadly consistent” with his earlier research, but their new study suggests an even bigger carbon capture potential for currently managed forests. 

“These findings are very encouraging,” Zeng said. “This method is scalable and viable, and our research confirms that."

Managed forests produce large amounts of wood debris, which is often burned or left to decompose. Burying the wood debris preserves it in soil and largely prevents CO2 from escaping.

“Soil is a very good natural insulator and can naturally deplete oxygen to prevent wood debris from decomposition and carbon dioxide release,” Luo said. “So, if we bury the wood 2 meters deep, the wood can be preserved there for hundreds, even thousands of years.”

Zeng noted that the rule of thumb for wood burial is “the longer the better,” but even a 50-year storage period can help slow global warming. Much of Zeng’s previous research focused on building durable “wood vaults” that delay decomposition as long as possible.

In September 2024, he published a paper revealing that a 3,775-year-old preserved log had lost less than 5% CO2 thanks to the low-permeability clay soil that covered it. Zeng noted that future studies could focus on the unique conditions that extend the lifespan of wood debris.

“This paper assumed that we can preserve wood for 10, 20 or 2,000 years,” Zeng said, “so the next step would be to study how you bury it or build a wood vault so that it can actually last for thousands of years.”

Burying wood debris is estimated to be relatively inexpensive, especially compared with other carbon capture methods. In many cases, it could be done on-site with minimal transportation costs. The researchers estimated that the CO2 emissions of implementation would amount to 2% to 5% of the carbon saved—a relatively small carbon footprint.

The study’s authors focused on managed forests, sawmills and discarded furniture as the greatest sources of wood debris—and the biggest potential for impact. This solution could also incentivize the removal of debris from forests in areas of high wildfire risk, reducing the amount of fuel for fires while capturing carbon at the same time.

“If you can thin the forest enough, the fire will not burn a bigger area,” Luo said. “But currently in the western U.S., the effort is very slow because it’s time-consuming and financially very costly. But if they could sell this wood as a carbon credit, it would provide additional income to manage forest fires.”

Researchers said further large-scale demonstrations are needed to assess how burying wood debris would impact soil health, methane emissions, soil nutrients and biodiversity. 

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The study, “Large CO2 removal potential of woody debris preservation in managed forests,” was published in Nature Geoscience on June 25, 2025.

This article was adapted from text provided by Cornell University.

The study was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (Grant Nos. DEB 2242034, DEB 2406935 and DEB 2425290), the U.S. Department of Energy (Grant No. DE-SC0023514 and Award No. CW55561), the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets. This article does not necessarily reflect the views of these organizations.