Ex-ante impact assessment of land-use zoning decisions on potential wood supply at a regional level – a case study from two provinces in Finland

Abstract

ABSTRACT An ex-ante impact assessment of land use plans is required in the preparation or revision phase to inform planners and other stakeholders about the possible or likely impacts of the plans. This study presents a method for estimating the quantitative effects of legislative decisions, the forest owner decisions, and a regional land use plan for forest resources and potential wood supply. The uncertainty associated with the interpretation of design codes used in regional land use plans was taken into account in the estimation. The analyses used MELA software, designed to operate on big data sets involving the characteristics of a large forest area. Estimates were produced for the Kainuu and Varsinais-Suomi case study areas in Finland. We observed large differences in the effects of legislative decisions, the forest owner decisions and a regional land use plan on forest resources available for wood supply and potential wood supply between these two provinces. In Varsinais-Suomi private forest owners and companies were affected considerably more than in Kainuu. There was little uncertainty associated with the interpretation of design codes in Kainuu, but the selection of the interpretation set may have a large effect on the estimates in Varsinais-Suomi.