Abstract
Continuous-cover forestry (CCF) has been recognized for the production of multiple ecosystem services, and is seen as an alternative to clear-cut forestry (CF). Despite the increasing interest, it is still not well described how CCF would affect the carbon balance and the resulting climate benefit from the forest in relation to CF. This study compares carbon balances of CF and CCF, applied as two alternative land-use strategies for a heterogeneous Norway spruce (Picea abies) stand. We use a set of models to analyze the long-term effects of different forest management and wood use strategies in Sweden on carbon dioxide emissions and carbon stock changes. The results show that biomass growth and yield is more important than the choice of silvicultural system per se. When comparing CF and CCF assuming similar growth, extraction and product use, only minor differences in long-term climate benefit were found between the two principally different silvicultural systems.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-015-0756-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
An actively managed forest landscape that provides a large amount of sustained biomass yield while at the same time maintaining large standing forest carbon stocks, provides greater climate benefits in the long run compared to unmanaged forests (Nabuurs and Masera 2007; Lundmark et al 2014)
In order to evaluate silvicultural programs in terms of climate change mitigation effectiveness, this study aims to compare the dynamics of carbon balances of cut forestry (CF) and Continuous-cover forestry (CCF)
According to the assumptions made in this study, the average annual biomass production was the same in three scenarios, i.e., CF, CF?, and CCF100, but was lower for the CCF80 scenario
Summary
An actively managed forest landscape that provides a large amount of sustained biomass yield while at the same time maintaining large standing forest carbon stocks, provides greater climate benefits in the long run compared to unmanaged forests (Nabuurs and Masera 2007; Lundmark et al 2014). As a result of sustained forest production, some of society’s consumption will be based on renewable products reducing the net emissions of carbon to the atmosphere through the substitution of fossil-based materials. This substitution effect depends on what products that are consumed in society and substituted with forest products e.g., fossil fuels, steel, and concrete (Sathre and O’Connor 2010; Gustavsson and Sathre 2011; Poudel et al 2011; Gustavsson et al 2015). Several studies have shown the importance of a sustained or increased yield in actively managed forest to increase the climate benefit (Canadell and Raupach 2008; Malmsheimer et al 2008; Poudel et al 2012; Lundmark et al 2014; Sievanen et al 2014)
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