Forest management in changing climate with multiple targets of timber production, carbon sequestration and maintenance of biodiversity
Raisa Mäkipää1, Tapio Linkosalo1, Alexander Komarov2, Mikko Peltoniemi1, Vladimir Shanin2, Olli Tahvonen3, and Annikki Mäkelä3
1Finnish Forest Research
Institute, 2Russian Academy of Sciences, and 3University of Helsinki
IBFRA conference on Boreal Forests at Risk: From Boreal Science to Public Policy, 7‐10 October 2013, Edmonton Canada
Introduction
• Forest management is an activity with an exceptionally long time perspective – it have to account changes in environment and in the demands of the society.
• Planning of the future management practices should account for multiple ecosystem services, such as timber and bioenergy
production, mitigation of climate change (C seq.), maintenance of biodiversity, etc.
Objective
• To assess potential management options and how they provide cash crop to the owner and other ecosystem services to the society in the future climatic conditions. Methods
• We simulated stand development with process‐based growth models, which were combined with relevant feedbacks to a sub‐
model of soil organic matter decomposition and nutrient turnover and linked to biodiversity sub‐models that predict potential occurrence of indicator species (polypores) as a function of suitable dead wood substrate. Results
Forest C stock with conventional and economically optimized management in current and changing climate
Biomass carbon stock
Soil carbon stock
Source: Mäkipää et al. 2010. J For Planning 16: 107-120.
Climate change mitigation – effect of CO2 price on stand management 770
750
750
660
-1
Volume m ha
3
3
Volume m ha
600
450
300
440
450
330
300
150
150
0
0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
550
600
220
CO2 tn ha
900
-1
900
-1
Fertile site H100=30
Mesic site H100=24
110
0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
Stand age, yrs
Stand age, yrs
A positive CO2 price increases density and postpones harvests in Norway spruce stand
- optimal solutions (interest rate 3%).
Source: Niinimäki et al. 2013. Can J For Res, in press.
Bioenergy harvesting decreases both biomass and soil C stock
1st thinning
2nd thinning
Current Climate
Stand age
Changing Climate
Stand age
38
31
55
42
Biomass of trees (left) and soil organic matter (right) with conventional and wholetree harvesting in current and changed climate.
Source: Mäkipää et al. ms in prep.
Harvested biomass replace fossil fuels, but is not carbon neutral
Reduction in fossil fuel emissions obtained with harvested biomass
<
At tha age of 80‐years, biomass and soil C stocks were reduced by 7.7 Mg/ha and 10.2 Mg/ha
Biodiversity targets included
• We linked species habitat models to dead wood decomposition model.
• Input to dead wood wool can be predicted with any stand simulator that accounts natural mortality.
Lack of dead wood substrate result in decline of species diversity in middle‐aged stands
Simulated stand development and number of
dead trees
Simulated number of logs in different decay
phases
Source Peltoniemi et al. 2013 FEM 310:523-530.
Tree species diversity affects NPP and timber production
Dmax (overyielding) of NPP in 100 yr rotation period with diferent tree species
proportions. Higher biomass production in mixed stands than in monocultures.
Source: Shanin et al, manuscript accepted for revision, available from authors
Increasing proportionof birch in
mixed spruce-birch stands
C stock decreases with increasing proportion of deciduous birch
Lähde: Shanin ym. Ecol. Modelling 2013.
Source: Shanin, Mäkipää et al. 2012.
Spruce‐birch mixture as well as pine dominated sites have positive response to climate change. Fig. Effect of climate change on carbon stock of mixed birch‐pine and birch‐spruce stands.
Averages over the simulation period and s.d. resulting from climatic characteristics of different climate scenarios.
Both increased temperature and elevated CO2 affect growth
Potential growth on fertile (OMT) sites in S Finland (Linkosalo et al. Submitted manuscr
Forest growth enhanced by CO2 and temperature on all site conditions
Pine
Linkosalo et al. Submitted manuscript.
Take home messages
• In the near future, forests are more affected by management than by climate change.
• Effects of management on timber and biomass production, economy, biodiversity, and carbon sequestration can be predicted with current models.
• Use of forest biomass in energy production is not carbon neutral.
• In the changing climate, biomass growth and biomass C stock is increased, but soil C stock decreased. Overall C balance seemed to be positive.
This study is funded as a part of the
Finnish Research Programme for Climate Change,
FICCA 2009-2014, by the Academy of FInland
Thank you for your time