Economic Feasibility of Managing Loblolly Pine Forests for Water Production under Climate Change in the Southeastern United States

Abstract

Abstract:In this study, we assessed the impacts of climate change, forest management, and different forest productivity conditions on the water yield and profitability of loblolly pine stands in the southeastern United States. Using the 3-PG (Physiological Processes Predicting Growth) model, we determined different climatic projections and then employed a stand level economic model that incorporates, for example, prices for timber and increased water yield. We found that, under changing climatic conditions, water yield increases with thinnings and low levels of tree planting density. On average, under moderate climatic conditions, water yield increases by 584 kL·ha −1 and 97 kL·ha −1 for low and high productivity conditions, respectively. Under extreme climatic conditions, water yield increases by 100 kL·ha −1 for low productivity conditions. Land expectation values increase by 96% ($6653.7 ha −1 ) and 95% ($6424.1 ha −1 ) for each climatic scenario compared to those obtained for unthinned loblolly pine plantations managed only for timber production and under current climatic conditions. The contributions of payments for increased water yield to the land values were 38% ($2530.1 ha −1 ) and 30% ($1894.8 ha −1 ). Results suggest that payments for water yield may be a "win-win" strategy to sustainably improve water supply and the economic conditions of forest ownership in the region.

In‐Situ Quantification and Prediction of Water Yield From Southern US Pine Forests

“…Forward model applications include scenario analyses to predict changes in water yield with different forest management activities, short-term climate variation, and long-term climate change at spatial scales from forest stands to large watersheds. In the southeastern US and other regions facing increasing water shortages (Anandhi & Bentley, 2018;Sun, 2013), such region-specific models are critical for supporting water supply planning activities (Douglass, 1983) and the development and implementation of policy instruments that incentivize water yield as an important forest product (Bawa & Dwivedi, 2021;Susaeta et al, 2016Susaeta et al, , 2017. While coarser watershed and continental-scale models exist (e.g., the Water Supply Stress Index Model, WaSSI (Sun, Caldwell, et al, 2011)) and similarly offer estimates of water yield change with land use and climate scenarios, empirical predictions from in-situ observations are important for supporting and validating more region-and ecosystem-specific models.…”

“…Managing the biomass in these forests may afford opportunities to optimize tradeoffs among wood products, water yield, and other services (González‐Sanchis et al., 2019; C. N. Jones et al., 2018). However, while incentive and payment‐for‐ecosystem‐services (PES) programs have been developed to support carbon sequestration (Jayachandran et al., 2017), habitat provisioning (Tuanmu et al., 2016), and water quality protection (Kreye et al., 2014) in forests, efforts to optimize water quantity (e.g., hydrological easements or “payment for water yield” programs) have been slower to develop (Susaeta et al., 2017). This lag is due, at least in part, to uncertainties about the relationships among forest structure, climate variation, and dynamic water yield (McNulty et al., 2018).…”

A review of economic approaches modeling the complex interactions between forest management and watershed services

“…Other studies use a set of conceptual or empirically calibrated hydrological functions to represent both hydrological and sedimentation processes. The parameters of these functions are either taken from existing literature (Eriksson et al, 2011;Nordblom et al, 2012;Susaeta et al, 2017) or quantified using primary data collected in the case study area (Kramer et al, 1997;Simonit et al, 2015).…”

“…Lauren et al (2007) apply a process-based ecological model to simulate tree physiological and ecosystem responses to changes in thinning intensity, and their effect on water quality. Susaeta et al (2017) use a physiological process-based model to predict forest growth and yield under different climate scenarios, evaluating the response of forest growth to changes in precipitation levels. The model used by Nordblom et al (2010) analyses hydrological and land use interactions employing an empirical global model that relates water yield to land uses and rainfall.…”

“…The impacts of changes in forest management typically manifest themselves over longer periods of time, and as a result most of the studies simulate forest evolution and associated timber and watershed yields in the long-term. However, only a small number of studies examine the response of forest growth and hydrological responses to changes in key climatic variables (Kramer et al, 1997;Arias et al, 2011;Fan et al, 2016;Garcia-Prats et al, 2016;Susaeta et al, 2017). A few studies specifically include precipitation as a variable of forest and water interactions (Nordblom et al, 2012;Vincent et al, 2016), which allow the models to evaluate the potential effect of changes in precipitation patterns due to climate change on the provision of watershed services.…”