Reconstructing European forest management from 1600 to 2010

Abstract

Because of the slow accumulation and long residence time of carbon in biomass and soils, the present state and future dynamics of temperate forests are influenced by management that took place centuries to millennia ago. Humans have exploited the forests of Europe for fuel, construction materials and fodder for the entire Holocene. In recent centuries, economic and demographic trends led to increases in both forest area and management intensity across much of Europe. In order to quantify the effects of these changes in forests and to provide a baseline for studies on future land-cover-climate interactions and biogeochemical cycling, we created a temporally and spatially resolved reconstruction of European forest management from 1600 to 2010. For the period 1600-1828, we took a supply-demand approach, in which supply was estimated on the basis of historical annual wood increment and land cover reconstructions. We made demand estimates by multiplying population with consumption factors for construction materials, household fuelwood, industrial food processing and brewing, metallurgy, and salt production. For the period 1829-2010, we used a supply-driven backcasting method based on national and regional statistics of forest age structure from the second half of the 20th century. Our reconstruction reproduces the most important changes in forest management between 1600 and 2010: (1) an increase of 593 000 km 2 in conifers at the expense of deciduous forest (decreasing by 538 000 km 2 ); (2) a 612 000 km 2 decrease in unmanaged forest; (3) a 152 000 km 2 decrease in coppice management; (4) a 818 000 km 2 increase in high-stand management; and (5) the rise and fall of litter raking, which at its peak in 1853 resulted in the removal of 50 Tg dry litter per year.

Overview of methods and tools for evaluating future woody biomass availability in European countries

“…Over the past century, increasing afforestation efforts have been implemented in many European countries, partly to compensate for the over-utilization of forest resources required to meet the demand of the wood industries and/or to improve the economic value of unproductive areas, following agricultural land abandonment (McGrath et al 2015). North-western European countries have increased their forest cover from nearly no forest to about 10 % forest cover during the last century (Fuchs et al 2015).…”

Specialisation and diversity of multiple trophic groups are promoted by different forest features

“…Land-use is among the strongest drivers of biodiversity loss (Foley et al 2005;Flynn et al 2009;Newbold et al 2015). In temperate forests, management can involve various elements, including removal of timber and deadwood, the introduction of non-native trees and/or the promotion of a few productive tree species (Bengtsson et al 2000;McGrath et al 2015;Chaudhary et al 2016). Several studies have examined management effects on forest communities, however, they generally consider only a limited number of taxa, mostly aboveground, and typically focus on species richness alone (reviewed in Paillet et al 2010;Chaudhary et al 2016).…”

Spatio-temporal dynamics of regulating ecosystem services in Europe – The role of past and future land use change

“…For cropland intensity we can assume low levels of fertilizer application in 1900 as abundant fertilizer use was only possible after the Haber process was developed in 1908 (Erisman, Sutton, Galloway, Klimont, & Winiwarter, 2008). The recent reconstruction of forest management over the period 1600e2010 by McGrath et al (2015) gathered a lot more evidence for changes in forest management strategies during this period. The synthesis of that information is fairly consistent with our assumptions for the period 1900e2000.…”