The increase in the frequency, duration and severity of disturbances can disrupt forest composition and structure, posing threats to ecosystem services. Adaptive forest management has the potential to adjust forests to future disturbance regimes, by reducing their susceptibility to these threats and, therefore, increasing their adaptation capacity. However, few comprehensive studies have integrated the factors involved in adaptive forest management by comparing the biomass of national parks of the same region, or examined how global change might affect them in the near future. In this study, we integrate data of forest inventories, wildfires, high-resolution climate and pests information in climate model projections to assess climate-sensitive risks associated with key abiotic disturbances (such as fires, droughts and pests) in coniferous Mediterranean mountain forests, considering various forest management approaches and climate scenarios in three Spanish national parks. We employed the conceptual framework introduced by Lecina-Diaz et al. (2021a) to evaluate risks to forests and considered Exposed values (E), Hazard Magnitude (HM), Susceptibility (S) and Lack of Adaptive Capacity (LAC). We applied statistical weights using expert weights and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) as the basis for determining the global ranking score of each indicator of the risk components. We extracted information about the climatic scenarios from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6. Three forest management scenarios were generated, named “low intervention», «traditional silviculture”, and "reduction of climate vulnerability", and mapped the risks of carbon sequestration for the different scenarios. The importance of each component was estimated using the AHP. HM was most significantly affected by the Aridity Index and the Fire Risk Index, with weights of 27.7 % and 24.2 %, respectively; S was affected by fuel load (29.0 %) and the Suppression Difficulty index (21.0 %), and LAC was influenced by forest management (32.0 %) and resprouting capacity (22.0 %). The three forest management scenarios exhibited different risk values that decreased with increasing intensity of the intervention in the three protected areas. Likewise, when two climate scenarios were considered, risk increased in the protected areas (Teide National Park, 10.69 %; Sierra Nevada National Park, 10.9 %; Sierra de las Nieves National Park, 6.17 %). Patterns of spatial arrangement of risk, which included HM, S and LAC, were consistent with the risk level, with the highest risk values being concentrated in the buffer areas (natural parks), with areas with a greater presence of coniferous plantations. The risk maps allowed us to identify areas that are critical under extreme conditions and where the greatest disturbance events may occur. Our study underscores that risks of disturbances in mountain ecosystems dominated by conifers within protected areas can be mitigated by forest management. The application of forest management adaptation strategies in national parks and buffer areas has proven effective in reducing risks of disturbances and preserving certain ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration.
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