Regional effects of alternative climate change and management scenarios on timber production, economic profitability and carbon stocks in Norway spruce forests in Finland

• Main Authors: Zubizarreta-Gerendiain, Ane, Garcia-Gonzalo, Jordi, Strandman, Harri, Jylha, Kirsti, Peltola, Heli
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: NRC Research Press (a division of Canadian Science Publishing) 2015
• Subjects: Norway; Northern Finland
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1807/71108; http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/cjfr-2015-0218

We studied regional effects of alternative climate change and management scenarios on timber production, its economic profitability (NPV with 2% interest rate) and carbon stocks over a 90 years simulation period in Norway spruce forests located in southern, central and northern Finland. We also compared the results of optimised management plans (maximizing incomes) and fixed management scenarios. Business-as-usual (BAU) management recommendations were used as basis for alternative management scenarios. The forest ecosystem model SIMA together with a forest optimisation tool was employed. To consider the uncertainties related to climate change, we applied two climate change scenarios (SRES B1 and A2) in addition to the current climate. Results showed that timber production, NPV and carbon stocks of forests would reduce in southern Finland, opposite to northern Finland, and especially under the strong climate change scenario (SRES A2) compared to the current climate. In central Finland, climate change would have little effect. The use of optimised management plans also resulted in higher timber yield, NPV and carbon stock of forests compared to the use of a single management scenario, regardless of forest region and climate scenario applied. In the future, we may need to modify the current BAU management recommendations to properly adapt to the changing climatic conditions. The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author.