Carbon storage, timber production, and biodiversity: comparing ecosystem services with multi‐criteria decision analysis

Abstract

Increasingly, land managers seek ways to manage forests for multiple ecosystem services and functions, yet considerable challenges exist in comparing disparate services and balancing trade‐offs among them. We applied multi‐criteria decision analysis (MCDA) and forest simulation models to simultaneously consider three objectives: (1) storing carbon, (2) producing timber and wood products, and (3) sustaining biodiversity. We used the Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS) applied to 42 northern hardwood sites to simulate forest development over 100 years and to estimate carbon storage and timber production. We estimated biodiversity implications with occupancy models for 51 terrestrial bird species that were linked to FVS outputs. We simulated four alternative management prescriptions that spanned a range of harvesting intensities and forest structure retention. We found that silvicultural approaches emphasizing less frequent harvesting and greater structural retention could be expected to achieve the greatest net carbon storage but also produce less timber. More intensive prescriptions would enhance biodiversity because positive responses of early successional species exceeded negative responses of late successional species within the heavily forested study area. The combinations of weights assigned to objectives had a large influence on which prescriptions were scored as optimal. Overall, we found that a diversity of silvicultural approaches is likely to be preferable to any single approach, emphasizing the need for landscape‐scale management to provide a full range of ecosystem goods and services. Our analytical framework that combined MCDA with forest simulation modeling was a powerful tool in understanding trade‐offs among management objectives and how they can be simultaneously accommodated.

Soil “Ecosystem” Services and Natural Capital: Critical Appraisal of Research on Uncertain Ground

“…The pendulum swung back to CBA for a while after 1997, but since none of the earlier criticisms of CBA were addressed or resolved, some of the focus has returned eventually to MCDA in the last few years. At this point, the literature dealing with the use of MCDA in environmental management is expanding rapidly (Linkov et al, 2006;Munda, 2008;Huang et al, 2011;Schwenk et al, 2012;Davies et al, 2013;Knights et al, 2013;Liu et al, 2013).…”

Multi-source forest inventory data for forest production and utilization analyses at different levels

“…In previous studies information on valuable habitats or other biodiversity indicators has been combined with simulation of forest stand data to assist in the evaluation of alternative management strategies in forest planning (e.g. Nalli et al 1996;Naesset 1997a;Öhman and Eriksson 1998;Carlsson 1999;Kliskey et al 1999;Kurttila et al 2002;Öhman and Eriksson 2002;Schwenk et al 2012). Forest management planning systems linking georeferenced forest stand data, projection models and an LP model are powerful tools allowing decision makers to explore trade-offs between multiple objectives and analyse the economic consequences of alternative developments (Carlsson 1999).…”

The Positive Carbon Stocks–Biodiversity Relationship in Forests: Co‐Occurrence and Drivers Across Five SubClimates

“…Additionally, C stocks can be affected by natural disturbances (e.g., wildfires and insect outbreaks) by means of direct combustion of live trees or accelerated decomposition of dead biomass (Stinson et al 2011, Heon et al 2014. Moreover, forest management influences C stocks by promoting changes in forest age, structure, or species composition (Nabuurs et al 2008, Schwenk et al 2012.…”