Adaptation to Climate Change in Swedish Forestry

Abstract

Adaptation to climate change in forestry has become a growing concern, in part due to the impact of storms and other events that have raised the awareness of such risks amongst forest owners. Sweden is one of Europe's most densely-forested countries, with this sector playing a major role economically. However adaptation has, to a large extent, been limited to the provision of recommendations to forest managers, most of which have only been partially implemented. This paper summarizes research with direct implications for adaptation to climate change within the forestry sector in Sweden. The focus is based in particular on providing examples of adaptations that illustrate the specific Swedish orientation to adaptation, in line with its relatively intensive forest management system. The paper thus illustrates a specific Swedish orientation to adaptation through active management, which can be contrasted with approaches to adaptation in other forestry systems, in particular those with limited management or management based on maintaining natural forests in particular.

The calm before the storm: How climate change drives forestry evolutions

“…This situation is the paragon of reactive adaptations, defined by Adger et al (2005) as "adjustments in ecological, social, or economic systems in response to observed or expected changes in climatic stimuli and their effects." As found in the literature, the experience of a natural disaster enhances risk perception (Berrang-Ford et al 2011;Rey-Valette et al 2012;Keskitalo et al 2016). In line with this, interviewees generally evoked the exceptional heat waves experienced in 2003 as well as the devastating Lothar and Martin windstorms (in 1999 and 2009, respectively).…”

“…Among the many technical, organizational, and economic adaptations found in the literature, the interviews showed that only some of them were implemented in the Vosges and Landes regions. In the two French study cases, implementation focused on technical changes fostering timber production and considered ecological processes to be instrumental features of forestry, a finding similar to what has been observed in the Swedish, Australian or Canadian forest sectors (Keskitalo et al 2016;Keenan 2017;Williamson et al 2019).…”

Adaptation to Climate Change in Forestry: A Perspective on Forest Ownership and Adaptation Responses

“…This guidance notes that temperatures in southern Sweden in 50-80 years will be similar to current temperatures south of the Baltic Sea, while temperatures in northern Sweden will be similar to those 500-1000 km to the south, as climate zones move northwards by some 5-10 km/year [73]. As a result, a number of measures are listed.…”

Adaptation Capacity of Norway Spruce Provenances in Western Latvia

“…Therefore, it is important to test adaptation capacity of transferred seedlots, which can be a tool to supplement local seed sources in the future [5]. Identification of both productive and robust provenances for utilisation in different climatic environments is in the focus of genetic adaptation to climate change [6]. The regeneration of Norway spruce almost exclusively by planting implies the importance of the adaptation of selected populations to their target planting locations through breeding and selection, thus reducing the potential risks for initial investments in stand establishment [7,8].…”