Applying Resilience Concepts in Forest Management: A Retrospective Simulation Approach

Caren Dymond,Sinclair Tedder,James Sandland,Katherine Hopkins,David Spittlehouse,Katharine Mccallion

doi:10.3390/f6124377

Caren Dymond, Sinclair Tedder + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/f6124377

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Journal: Forests	Publication Date: Dec 1, 2015
Citations: 51	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Government of British Columbia, Ministry of Forests

Abstract

Increasing the resilience of ecological and sociological systems has been proposed as an option to adapt to changing future climatic conditions. However, few studies test the applicability of those strategies to forest management. This paper uses a real forest health incident to assess the ability of forest management strategies to affect ecological and economic resilience of the forest. Two landscape scale strategies are compared to business as usual management for their ability to increase resilience to a climate-change induced mountain pine beetle outbreak in the Kamloops Timber Supply Area, British Columbia, Canada for the period 1980 to 2060. Proactive management to reduce high risk species while maintaining or increasing diversity through reforestation was found to be more resilient in terms of the metrics: post-disturbance growing stock, improved volume and stability of timber flow, and net revenue. However, landscape-scale indicators of diversity were little affected by management. Our results were robust to uncertainty in tree growth rates and timber value and show that adapting to climate change through improving the resilience of forested landscapes is an economically viable option.

Highlights

The 5th Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Working Group II [1] identified with high confidence that under climate change there is a “Risk of loss of terrestrial and inland water ecosystems, biodiversity, and the ecosystem goods, functions, and services they provide for livelihoods”
Where the effect of climate change on forest pests, diseases or species productivity can be reliably forecast, our study suggests that an adaptive forest management in temperate forests can potentially reduce likelihood of catastrophic ecological and economic instability
A changing climate with associated changes in tree survival, growth and disturbance is increasing the uncertainty of the future timber supply and other ecological goods and services we obtain from forests

Summary

Introduction

The 5th Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Working Group II [1] identified with high confidence that under climate change there is a “Risk of loss of terrestrial and inland water ecosystems, biodiversity, and the ecosystem goods, functions, and services they provide for livelihoods”. Their report indicates that adaptation of our management systems is necessary to reduce impacts on society. The economic value of ecosystem services to society is high; for example, Costanza et al [2] estimated an annual value in 2011 of 124.8 ˆ 1012 2007 US$. Projected changes to forests under a changing climate include increased disturbance by fire, wind, pests and disease, and changes in survival and growth of species [3,4,5]. Parts of the western North America have already experienced biophysical, economic and social impacts as a result of a mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins) epidemic [5] triggered mainly by milder winters as the climate warms [6]

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