Carbon sequestration or water yield? The effect of payments for ecosystem services on forest management decisions in Mediterranean forests

Abstract

A decrease in net benefits from market-based forest products over the last three decades seems to be connected to the increasing abandonment of forestland in Mediterranean areas of Europe. In this paper, we estimate spatially distributed probabilities of continuing with forest management practices in mainly native pine and oak forests in Andalusia (southern Spain). The continuation of active forest management encompasses landowners' investment in operations that promote the recruitment of new individuals of the same species once a stand reaches its rotation age. On the contrary, abandoning forestry investment involves natural self-regeneration including tree densification, shrub encroachment and forest species replacement. We estimate the long-term effects of alternative scenarios of forest management on carbon sequestration and water provisioning services (blue water, i.e. surface discharge and ground water recharge). We examine the effect of payments for carbon sequestration, or alternatively for increasing blue water, on forest management decisions. Results are provided as spatially disaggregated values over different time frames up to 2100 and consider the sensitivity of forest investment decisions to a wide range of price levels and discounting rates. Keywords: forestry investment abandonment; trade-offs and synergies; economic decision; Andalusia. JEL: Q23, Q51. Acknowledgments We thank three anonymous reviewers for valuable comments to improve. Paola Ovando acknowledges the support of the European Commission under the Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship Programme (PIEF-2013-621940), while developing the model and data base used in this paper. The authors thank the Regional Government of Andalusia and the Agency for Water and Environment in Andalusia for their financial and field work support for the "'Total social income and capital of Andalusian Forest" project (RECAMAN, Contract NET165602). Roberto Serrano-Notivoli, Alejandro Álvarez and Eloy Almazán helped the authors to operate the primary water data. This paper reflects the authors' views only, rather than the views of the supporting institutions.

Assessment of the Carbon Stock in Pine Plantations in Southern Spain through ALS Data and K-Nearest Neighbor Algorithm Based Models

“…The economic value of C sequestration in the area under study would, therefore, be 31,672,683.57 €, with an increment of 3,315,515.75 € year −1 in the current scenario, which outlines the important role of these pine plantations as a CO 2 sink. This quantity can also make a tremendous contribution to ecosystem preservation and forests conservation if given back to the local municipalities as payment for environmental services as subsidies and incentives [74]. Additionally, C-oriented silviculture offers other benefits-such as improving biodiversity and resilience against disturbances (fire, pests and diseases, and droughts)-that could also provide climate change mitigation and ensure the maintenance of ecosystem services related to planted forests [44,75].…”

Integrating Ecosystem Services Supply, Demand and Flow in Ecological Compensation: A Case Study of Carbon Sequestration Services

“…The larger the NDVI, the greater the vegetation coverage, and the stronger the carbon sequestration capacity. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the restoration of natural forests and vegetation, maintain regional biodiversity, and increase the supply capacity of ecosystem services [27,28]. Social factors such as population density and economic density were negatively correlated with the DSDCS.…”

“…As of 2017, there are more than 550 global PES schemes with an annual transaction value of $36-42 billion [20], covering a wide range of ecosystems such as water [21], forests [22,23], agricultural land [24], and oceans [25]. Most of the cases involve biodiversity or single environmental services [26], which mainly include water purification and provisioning [27], wind and sand control [28], air purification [29], carbon sequestration [30], soil retention [28], flood mitigation [29,31], and recreation services [32]. These management practices play an important role in increasing the provision of ecosystem services, maintaining landscape diversity, and effectively enhancing human well-being [33,34].…”

Managing Forests for Both Downstream and Downwind Water

“…The goal of maximizing forest carbon is not always compatible with the goal of sustainable water supplies, with complex tradeoffs across spatial scales (Creed and van Noordwijk, 2018). Tree planting can reduce downstream water availability (Filoso et al, 2017) and potentially constrain carbon sequestration elsewhere (Ovando et al, 2018). Governments must focus on the role of forests for water, not just forests for carbon, and consider positive and negative relations across scales.…”