Trade‐offs between temporal stability and level of forest ecosystem services provisioning under climate change

Albrich, Katharina; Rammer, Werner; Thom, Dominik; Seidl, Rupert

doi:10.1002/eap.1785

Cited by 75 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 78 publications

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“…S6). As such, these results underpin previous simulation studies that found a tradeoff between the temporal stability and the level of protection (Cordonnier et al 2008;Albrich et al 2018). The here used protection indicators (RPI and API) suggest high protection efficacy for dense and mature spruce forest that in turn lack long-term stability (Brang et al 2004).…”

Section: Protection and Disturbance Predispositionsupporting

confidence: 75%

“…Forests also support high biodiversity levels, which ensures forest resilience and is of high value in itself (Oliver et al 2015). Evaluations of the effects of management scenarios on the sustainable provision of forest ecosystem services and biodiversity (ESB) need to account for levels of ESB provision, trade-offs between individual ESB (Eggers et al 2017) and also the ability of forests to deliver ESB continuously over long time periods (Albrich et al 2018). Disturbance events such as wind storms and bark beetle calamities may disrupt the continuity in ESB provision (Schelhaas et al 2003;Thom and Seidl 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Trade-offs between ecosystem service provision and the predisposition to disturbances: a NFI-based scenario analysis

et al. 2020

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Background: Scenario analyses that evaluate management effects on the long-term provision and sustainability of forest ecosystem services and biodiversity (ESB) also need to account for disturbances. The objectives of this study were to reveal potential trade-offs and synergies between ESB provision and disturbance predisposition at the scale of a whole country. Methods: The empirical scenario model MASSIMO was used to simulate forest development and management from years 2016 to 2106 on 5086 sample plots of the Swiss National Forest Inventory (NFI). We included a businessas-usual (BAU) scenario and four scenarios of increased timber harvesting. Model output was evaluated with indicators for 1) ESB provision including a) timber production, b) old-growth forest characteristics as biodiversity proxies and c) protection against rockfall and avalanches and 2) for a) storm and b) bark beetle predisposition. Results: The predisposition indicators corresponded well (AUC: 0.71-0.86) to storm and insect (mostly bark beetle) damage observations in logistic regression models. Increased timber production was generally accompanied with decreased predisposition (storm: >−11%, beetle: >−37%, depending on region and scenario), except for a scenario that promoted conifers where beetle predisposition increased (e.g. + 61% in the Southern Alps). Decreased disturbance predisposition and decreases in old-growth forest indicators in scenarios of increased timber production revealed a trade-off situation. In contrast, growing stock increased under BAU management along with a reduction in conifer proportions, resulting in a reduction of beetle predisposition that in turn was accompanied by increasing old-growth forest indicators. Disturbance predisposition was elevated in NFI plots with high avalanche and rockfall protection value. Conclusions: By evaluating ESB and disturbance predisposition based on single-tree data at a national scale we bridged a gap between detailed, stand-scale assessments and broader inventory-based approaches at the national scale. We discuss the limitations of the indicator framework and advocate for future amendments that include climate-sensitive forest development and disturbance modelling to strengthen decision making in national forest policy making.

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Section: Protection and Disturbance Predispositionsupporting

confidence: 75%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trade-offs between ecosystem service provision and the predisposition to disturbances: a NFI-based scenario analysis

et al. 2020

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“…At the same time, an increase in agricultural productivity (also triggered by an input of fossil resources and artificial fertilizer) allowed for the abandonment of less productive agricultural plots, often followed by afforestation or the natural regrowth of forest vegetation. Consequently, growing stocks increased in many parts of Europe throughout the 20th century as the result of increases in both forest extent and density (Bebi et al, 2017). In our study system, the shifting focus from fuel wood to timber production around 1900 was accompanied by the introduction of systematic stand delineation for spatial management planning ( Fig.…”

Section: Reconstructing Forest Disturbance and Land-use Historymentioning

confidence: 96%

“…iLand has been extensively evaluated against independent data from forest ecosystems of the northern front range of the Alps using a pattern-oriented modeling approach (Grimm et al, 2005). The patterns for which simulations were compared with independent observations include tree productivity gradients and natural vegetation dynamics (Thom et al, 2017b), wind and bark beetle disturbance levels and distribution (Seidl and Rammer, 2017), and management trajectories (Albrich et al, 2018). A comprehensive documentation of iLand can be found online at http://iland.boku.ac.at/, last ac-cess: 20 September 2018, where also the model executable and source code are freely available under a GNU GPL open source license.…”

Section: Simulation Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Legacies of past land use have a stronger effect on forest carbon exchange than future climate change in a temperate forest landscape

et al. 2018

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Abstract. Forest ecosystems play an important role in the global climate system and are thus intensively discussed in the context of climate change mitigation. Over the past decades temperate forests were a carbon (C) sink to the atmosphere. However, it remains unclear to which degree this C uptake is driven by a recovery from past land use and natural disturbances or ongoing climate change, inducing high uncertainty regarding the future temperate forest C sink. Here our objectives were (i) to investigate legacies within the natural disturbance regime by empirically analyzing two disturbance episodes affecting the same landscape 90 years apart, and (ii) to unravel the effects of past land use and natural disturbances as well as the future climate on 21st century forest C uptake by means of simulation modeling. We collected historical data from archives to reconstruct the vegetation and disturbance history of a forest landscape in the Austrian Alps from 1905 to 2013. The effects of legacies and climate were disentangled by individually controlling for past land use, natural disturbances, and future scenarios of climate change in a factorial simulation study. We found only moderate spatial overlap between two episodes of wind and bark beetle disturbance affecting the landscape in the early 20th and 21st century, respectively. Our simulations revealed a high uncertainty about the relationship between the two disturbance episodes, whereas past land use clearly increased the impact of the second disturbance episode on the landscape. The future forest C sink was strongly driven by the cessation of historic land use, while climate change reduced forest C uptake. Compared to land-use change the two past episodes of natural disturbance had only marginal effects on the future carbon cycle. We conclude that neglecting legacies can substantially bias assessments of future forest dynamics.

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“…In contrast to technical measures, forests are dynamic systems that change over time. This means that also the services they provide to society are not static but vary over time , Albrich et al 2018. Natural disturbances (i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of forest cover and disturbance on torrential hazards: large-scale evidence from the Eastern Alps

Sebald

Senf

Heiser

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Global human population growth, limited space for settlements and a booming tourism industry have led to a strong increase of human infrastructure in mountain regions. As this infrastructure is highly exposed to natural hazards, a main role of mountain forests is to regulate the environment and reduce hazard probability. However, canopy disturbances are increasing in many parts of the world, potentially threatening the protection function of forests. Yet, large-scale quantitative evidence on the influence of forest cover and disturbance on natural hazards remains scarce to date. Here we quantified the effects of forest cover and disturbance on the probability and frequency of torrential hazards for 10 885 watersheds in the Eastern Alps. Torrential hazard occurrences were derived from a comprehensive database documenting 3768 individual debris flow and flood events between 1986 and 2018. Forest disturbances were mapped from Landsat satellite time series analysis. We found evidence that forests reduce the probability of natural hazards, with a 25 percentage point increase in forest cover decreasing the probability of torrential hazards by 8.7%±1.2%. Canopy disturbances generally increased the probability of torrential hazard events, with the regular occurrence of large disturbance events being the most detrimental disturbance regime for natural hazards. Disturbances had a bigger effect on debris flows than on flood events, and press disturbances were more detrimental than pulse disturbances. We here present the first large scale quantification of forest cover and disturbance effects on torrential hazards. Our findings highlight that forests constitute important green infrastructure in mountain landscapes, efficiently reducing the probability of natural hazards, but that increasing forest disturbances can weaken the protective function of forests.

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Trade‐offs between temporal stability and level of forest ecosystem services provisioning under climate change

Cited by 75 publications

References 78 publications

Trade-offs between ecosystem service provision and the predisposition to disturbances: a NFI-based scenario analysis

Trade-offs between ecosystem service provision and the predisposition to disturbances: a NFI-based scenario analysis

Legacies of past land use have a stronger effect on forest carbon exchange than future climate change in a temperate forest landscape

The effects of forest cover and disturbance on torrential hazards: large-scale evidence from the Eastern Alps

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