Pertinence of reactive, active, and robust adaptation strategies in forest management under climate change

Abstract

Pertinence of alternative adaptation strategies to business as usual, namely reactive, active, and robust adaptation strategies, can be evaluated by incorporating the expected costs and benefits of adaptation, climate change uncertainty, and the risk attitudes of decision-makers. Forest management is used to coping with risky and uncertain projections and estimates. However, climate change adds a major challenge and necessitates adaptation in many ways. This paper highlights the dependency of the decisions on adaptation strategies to four aspects of forest management: (i) the costs of mitigating undesirable climate change impacts on forests, (ii) the value of ecosystem goods and services to be sustained, (iii) uncertainties about future climate trajectories, and (iv) the attitude of decision-makers towards risk (risk aversion level). We develop a framework to evaluate the pertinence of reactive, active, and robust adaptation strategies in forest management in response to climate change. Business as usual may still be retained if the value of the forest and cost of climate impacts are low. Otherwise, it is crucial to react and facilitate the resilience of affected forest resources or actively adapt in advance and improve forest resistance. Adaptation should be robust under any future climate conditions, if the value of the ecosystem, the impacts from climatic changes, and the uncertainty about climate scenarios are very high. The decision framework for adaptation should take into account multiple aspects of forest management under climate change towards an active and robust strategy.