%0 Articles
%T Effects of management on timber production and carbon stock in a boreal forest ecosystem under changing climate: a model based approach
%A Garcia-Gonzalo, Jordi
%D 2007
%J Dissertationes Forestales
%V 2007
%N 42
%R doi:10.14214/df.42
%U http://dissertationesforestales.fi/article/1824
%X In this thesis a process-based growth and yield model was used to investigate: (i) the sensitivity of timber production (paper I) and carbon (C) stocks (paper II) to management (i.e. five thinning regimes and one unthinned regime) under different climate scenarios (i.e. current climate, ECHAM4 and HadCM2) at the level of the forest management unit (FMU); and (ii) the effects of initial age class distributions (i.e. normal, equal, left- and right- skewed distributions) of an FMU on timber production and C stocks under different management and climate scenarios, with implications on the cost of C sequestration over the next 100 years (paper III). Moreover, the integrated use of a process-based growth and yield model, a wood products model and a multi-objective optimisation heuristic allowed the investigation of how climate change may affect optimal planning solutions for multi-objective forest management in an FMU (paper IV). The different management objectives considered timber production, C sequestration (in situ as well as in wood products) and biodiversity (in terms of deadwood). Simulations over the next 100 years were undertaken with ground true stand inventory data of a forest management unit (1451 hectares) made up of a mosaic of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris), Norway spruce (Picea abies) and silver birch (Betula pendula) stands in central Finland.

The gradual increase in temperature and precipitation with a concurrent elevation in CO<sub>2</sub> over the simulation period enhanced timber production and C stocks. Regardless of the climate scenario and initial age class distribution used, any thinning regime allowing a higher tree stocking than business-as-usual management over the rotation increased the timber production and simultaneously maintained or increased the C stock in the forest ecosystem compared to business-as-usual management (papers I-III). On the other hand, the maximum C stock in the forest ecosystem was reached in the unthinned regime, but it also gave the lowest net present value. The initial age class distribution had more effect on timber production (up to 20% difference) than on average C stock in the forest ecosystem (3%) (Paper III). When optimising the management plans within the FMU, under changing climatic conditions, the share of allocated management regimes differed between the management objective scenarios as well as between the climate scenarios within each objective scenario (Paper IV). The relative increase in the utility of optimised plans due to climate change differed somewhat between the objective scenarios. As a conclusion, the integrated use of process-based model and wood products model together with multi-objective optimisation appears to be a promising approach for multiple-use management planning under conditions of climate change.