1. Trade‐Offs for Climate‐Smart Forestry in Europe Under Uncertain Future Climate
- Author
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Gregor, Konstantin, Knoke, Thomas, Krause, Andreas, Reyer, Christopher P. O., Lindeskog, Mats, Papastefanou, Phillip, Smith, Benjamin, Lansø, Anne‐Sofie, Rammig, Anja, 1 TUM School of Life Sciences Technical University of Munich Freising Germany, 2 Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research Member of the Leibniz Association Potsdam Germany, 3 Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science Lund University Lund Sweden, 5 Department of Environmental Science Aarhus University Aarhus Denmark, Technische Universität München = Technical University of Munich (TUM), Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Lund University [Lund], Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement [Gif-sur-Yvette] (LSCE), Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), and Aarhus University [Aarhus]
- Subjects
[SDU.OCEAN]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Ocean, Atmosphere ,SHORT-ROTATION COPPICE ,UNMANAGED FORESTS ,VEGETATION DYNAMICS ,climate‐smart forestry ,LAND-USE ,forest management ,substitution effects ,robust optimization ,ECOSYSTEM SERVICES ,climate change mitigation ,ddc ,CARBON SEQUESTRATION ,climate-smart forestry ,ddc:634.9 ,Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous) ,MANAGEMENT ,ddc:630 ,GREENHOUSE-GAS CONCENTRATIONS ,LPJ-GUESS V4.0 ,ecosystem services ,BIOMASS PRODUCTIVITY ,GENERAL ,Climate and interannual variability ,Numerical modeling ,NATURAL HAZARDS ,Atmospheric ,Geological ,Oceanic ,Physical modeling ,Climate impact ,Risk ,Disaster risk analysis and assessment ,OCEANOGRAPHY: PHYSICAL ,Air/sea interactions ,Decadal ocean variability ,Ocean influence of Earth rotation ,Sea level: variations and mean ,Surface waves and tides ,Tsunamis and storm surges ,PALEOCEANOGRAPHY ,POLICY SCIENCES ,Benefit-cost analysis ,RADIO SCIENCE ,Radio oceanography ,SEISMOLOGY ,Earthquake ground motions and engineering seismology ,Volcano seismology ,TECTONOPHYSICS ,Evolution of the Earth ,VOLCANOLOGY ,Volcano/climate interactions ,Atmospheric effects ,Volcano monitoring ,Effusive volcanism ,Mud volcanism ,Explosive volcanism ,Volcanic hazards and risks ,GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION ,Europe ,Research Article ,robust optimization [ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE ,Air/sea constituent fluxes ,Biosphere/atmosphere interactions ,Evolution of the atmosphere ,Volcanic effects ,BIOGEOSCIENCES ,Modeling ,Climate dynamics ,COMPUTATIONAL GEOPHYSICS ,Numerical solutions ,CRYOSPHERE ,Avalanches ,Mass balance ,GEODESY AND GRAVITY ,Ocean monitoring with geodetic techniques ,Ocean/Earth/atmosphere/hydrosphere/cryosphere interactions ,Global change from geodesy ,GLOBAL CHANGE ,Impacts of global change ,Land/atmosphere interactions ,Abrupt/rapid climate change ,Atmosphere ,Climate variability ,Earth system modeling ,Oceans ,Regional climate change ,Sea level change ,Solid Earth ,Water cycles ,HYDROLOGY ,Climate impacts ,Hydrological cycles and budgets ,INFORMATICS ,MARINE GEOLOGY AND GEOPHYSICS ,Gravity and isostasy ,ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES ,Climate change and variability ,Climatology ,General circulation ,Ocean/atmosphere interactions ,Regional modeling ,Theoretical modeling ,OCEANOGRAPHY] ,[SDU.ENVI]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Continental interfaces, environment ,General Environmental Science - Abstract
Forests mitigate climate change by storing carbon and reducing emissions via substitution effects of wood products. Additionally, they provide many other important ecosystem services (ESs), but are vulnerable to climate change; therefore, adaptation is necessary. Climate‐smart forestry combines mitigation with adaptation, whilst facilitating the provision of many ESs. This is particularly challenging due to large uncertainties about future climate. Here, we combined ecosystem modeling with robust multi‐criteria optimization to assess how the provision of various ESs (climate change mitigation, timber provision, local cooling, water availability, and biodiversity habitat) can be guaranteed under a broad range of climate futures across Europe. Our optimized portfolios contain 29% unmanaged forests, and implicate a successive conversion of 34% of coniferous to broad‐leaved forests (11% vice versa). Coppices practically vanish from Southern Europe, mainly due to their high water requirement. We find the high shares of unmanaged forests necessary to keep European forests a carbon sink while broad‐leaved and unmanaged forests contribute to local cooling through biogeophysical effects. Unmanaged forests also pose the largest benefit for biodiversity habitat. However, the increased shares of unmanaged and broad‐leaved forests lead to reductions in harvests. This raises the question of how to meet increasing wood demands without transferring ecological impacts elsewhere or enhancing the dependence on more carbon‐intensive industries. Furthermore, the mitigation potential of forests depends on assumptions about the decarbonization of other industries and is consequently crucially dependent on the emission scenario. Our findings highlight that trade‐offs must be assessed when developing concrete strategies for climate‐smart forestry., Plain Language Summary: Forests help mitigate climate change by storing carbon and via avoided emissions when wood products replace more carbon‐intensive materials. At the same time, forests provide many other “ecosystem services (ESs)” to society. For example, they provide timber, habitat for various species, and they cool their surrounding regions. They are, however, also vulnerable to ongoing climate change. Forest management must consider all these aspects, which is particularly challenging considering the uncertainty about future climate. Here, we propose how this may be tackled by computing optimized forest management portfolios for Europe for a broad range of future climate pathways. Our results show that changes to forest composition are necessary. In particular, increased shares of unmanaged and broad‐leaved forests are beneficial for numerous ESs. However, these increased shares also lead to decreases in harvest rates, posing a conflict between wood supply and demand. We further show that the mitigation potential of forests strongly depends on how carbon‐intensive the replaced materials are. Consequently, should these materials become “greener” due to new technologies, the importance of wood products in terms of climate change mitigation decreases. Our study highlights that we cannot optimize every aspect, but that trade‐offs between ESs need to be made., Key Points: Strategies for climate‐smart forestry under a range of climate scenarios always lead to trade‐offs between different ecosystem services (ESs). Higher shares of unmanaged and broad‐leaved forests are beneficial for numerous ESs, but lead to decreased timber provision. The mitigation potential of forests strongly relies on substitution effects which depend on the carbon‐intensity of the alternative products., European Forest Institute (EFI) Networking Fund http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100013942, Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst, Bayerisches Netzwerk für Klimaforschung (BayKliF) http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100004563, Swedish Research Council Formas, German Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE), https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6667489, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6612953
- Published
- 2022