Developing Detailed Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) Narratives for the Global Forest Sector

Abstract

This paper presents a series of narratives that can be used to define possible future trends in the global forest sector across the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), which we refer to as Forest Sector Pathways (FSPs). SSPs are part of a new scenario framework established by the climate change research community that facilitate the integrated analysis of future climate impacts, vulnerabilities, adaptation, and mitigation. The SSPs are based on five narratives describing alternative socioeconomic pathways, including sustainable development, regional rivalry, inequality, fossil-fueled development, and middle-of-the-road development. The long-term demographic and economic projections of the SSPs depict a wide uncertainty range consistent with the scenario literature. However, * We thank the participants of the Forest Sector Modelling workshop at IIASA in March 2017 for their valuable input.

Projecting global and regional outlooks for planted forests under the shared socio-economic pathways

“…In cases where we anticipate high population growth and consumption growth without a stringent regulation (SSP3), Asia or South America might be particularly under at risk of unsustainable forest plantation levels. In the other regions, greater planted forest development is found with SPP5, which could be attributable to the highly resourceintensive and fossil-fuel-dependent future (O'Neill et al 2017), coupled with a positive assumption of high productivity growth and diffusion of best practices in planted forest management (Daigneault et al 2019). We compared our projections with our previous planted forest area outlook reported by Nepal et al (2019c), which provided outlooks of planted forest area development through 2070 for each SSP and which were linearly driven by GDP per capita and roundwood production quantities projected in each country in each SSP.…”

“…The SSPs describe different socio-economic, technological, environmental, and policy futures of the world, with varying degree of challenges for climate change mitigation and adaptation (Table 1). A recent study by Daigneault et al (2019) builds upon existing SSP foundations by elaborating on the potential implications of SSP-related variables on forest resource management, forest product markets, wood-based bioenergy expansion, and other relevant trends in global forestry. We draw on some of those key assumptions related to plantation forest management under each SSP, as summarized in Table 1. Compared to other SSPs, SSP1 and SSP5 represent visions of the wealthiest and most equal future worlds with the least population growth (O'Neill et al 2017).…”

“…Building on the original SSP narratives, Daigneault et al (2019) make assumptions, for example, regarding technological development, stringency of regulation and rate of deforestation under each SSPs. They summarize that the best planted forest management practices are found in association with SSP1, consistent with high productivity growth, backed by strong regulations to avoid ecological tradeoffs in this pathway.…”

“…Assumes a peak and decline in population (~ 7 billion in 2100), high income, reduced inequalities, and free trade but emphasizes resource-intensive production, consumption and lifestyles. Relative to other pathways, SSP5 has high challenges to mitigation, but low challenges to adaptation Highly managed, resource-intensive; rapid increase in productivity we aim to model the future planted forest area development under quantitative scenarios inspired by the SSP narratives (O'Neill et al 2017), reflecting the developments also with recent SSP narratives created for forest sector (Daigneault et al 2019).…”

Global Woody Biomass Harvest Volumes and Forest Area Use Under Different SSP-RCP Scenarios

“…However, these studies focus on land-cover changes or single feedstocks and consequently do not consider overall forest resources use. Recently Daigneault et al (2019) have considered the impact of SSPs on forest resources use by developing Forest Sector Pathways (FSPs). However, FSPs are currently documented only qualitatively and there exists not yet any commonly agreed way to quantify them.…”