Timber production is an important ecosystem service of European mountain forests. This paper aimed to assess the current practices in logging operations and to identify the efficiency gaps in timber production. The study was located in seven case study areas from representative European mountain ranges, where 632 logging operations were analysed. The focus was on road infrastructure, transport systems, harvesting methods and extraction technologies. Often inappropriate technology was used in steep terrain; there was no correlation between the average slope and the selection of harvesting systems. Skidding was the most common extraction method (75%), while cable yarding and forwarding had shares of 15% and 8%. The mean road density was 18.5 m ha -1 . The mean extraction distance was 501 m. The mean harvesting and extraction productivity were 9.0 m³ h -1 and 10.2 m³ h -1 ; the mean costs were 11.1 € m -³ and 11.7 € m -³, respectively. Non-mechanized and obsolete harvesting systems reported the lowest efficiency and the highest environmental footprint, while fully mechanized systems reported the highest efficiency, the lowest number of accidents and the lowest stand damage. Cable yarders are the appropriate extraction technology in steep terrain, but they require a well-developed road network. Higher mechanization degree, improved quality of the road networks, knowledge transfer to practice and training of forest workers are some of the necessary measures to overcome the efficiency gaps in timber production in European mountain forests.
Undertaking under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 20757 "TECH4EFFECT". Special thanks to Olalla Díaz-Yáñez for providing the background data of her paper and Hans Verkerk for EFISCEN runs. 3 Sustainability impacts of increased forest biomass feedstock supply-a comparative assessment of technological solutions Sustainably managed forests provide renewable raw material, which can be used for primary/secondary conversion products and as biomass for energy generation. The potentially available amounts of timber, which are still lower than annual increments, have been published earlier. Access to this timber can be challenging for smalldimensioned assortments, however, technologically improved value chains can make them accessible while fulfilling economic and environment criteria. This paper evaluates the economic, environmental and social sustainability impacts of making the potentially available timber available with current and with technologically improved value chains. This paper focusses on increasing the biomass feedstock supply for energy generation. Quantified impact assessments show which improvements in terms of costs, employment, fuel and energy use, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions can be expected if better mechanized machines than before are provided. Comparative results for current and innovative machine solutions in terms of fuel use, energy use, and greenhouse gas emissions have been calculated using three different methods. This was done in order to quantify not only the impact of the technology choice but also the effect of the choice of the assessment method. Absolute stand-alone values can be misleading in analyses and the use of different impact calculation approaches in parallel is clarifying the limits of using LCA-based approaches. Impacts are calculated using three methods: Sustainability Impacts Assessment (SIA), Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Emission Saving Criteria (ESC). The ESC has been discussed for the recast of the Renewable Energy Directive. Potential EU-wide results are presented.
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