Forest harvest index: Accounting for global gross forest cover loss of wood production and an application of trade analysis

Abstract

Global wood trade Gross forest cover loss Growing stock density Industrial roundwood Wood fuel a b s t r a c t Forest cover loss is a major cause of both the decline in global biodiversity and the increase in carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Focusing on the effects of logging, this study introduces an index of wood production, the forest harvest index (FHI), which calculates the expected gross forest cover loss (GFCL) reflecting the demand for timber and wood products at the global scale. We examined the accuracy and precision of the index by investigating the relationship between the FHI and actual GFCL measured through remote sensing. The index incorporates wood-and climate-specific biomass expansion factors and countryspecific growing stock densities to convert wood production volume to expected GFCL. We quantitatively examined the effect of data uncertainty in the growing stock density values obtain from FRA 2010 on the predicted relationship between the FHI and actual GFCL. We quantified the FHI for both industrial roundwood and wood fuel during a 5-year period (FY2000-FY2004) in each of the 139 nations considered. Results demonstrated that the FHI of industrial roundwood (18.6 million ha yr −1 ) corresponds well to actual GFCL (19.3 million ha yr −1 ) during the same period. The data uncertainty analysis suggested that increasing the frequency of forest monitoring at the national level can improve the precision and accuracy of the FHI, but discrepancies between the FHI and actual GFCL were also identified. Furthermore, to demonstrate the utility of our index as a metric of virtual GFCL of wood products, we disaggregated the FHI into export, import and domestic based on global wood trade data and compared the strength of the relationship with actual GFCL. Export FHI had a strong positive relationship with GFCL, which effect far exceeded the compensating effect of import FHI, indicating that wood trade overall increased GFCL at the global scale.

Forest cover change detection using Geographic Information Systems and remote sensing techniques: a spatio-temporal study on Komto Protected forest priority area, East Wollega Zone, Ethiopia

“…The LULC has the potential to influence the biological processes, and alter the provision of ecosystem services (Gibson et al 2018;Geng et al 2015;Kishtawal et al 2010). The change in LULC has an impacts on hydrological fluxes (Guzha et al 2018), regional climate (Geng et al 2015;Costa et al 2003), agricultural production (Deng et al 2013) and greenhouse gas emissions (Furukawa et al 2015;Findell et al 2007). Forest plays a vital role in regulating climate change through sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide and mitigates global climate change.…”

Forest harvest contribution to Boreal freshwater methyl mercury load

“…Boreal coniferous forests cover 8.72 million km 2 [Hansen et al, 2010], corresponding to 30% of the global forest area [Brandt et al, 2013]. Forestry is the predominant land use throughout the Boreal zone [Furukawa et al, 2015] and currently about two thirds of the forest area is managed, mostly for wood production [Gauthier et al, 2015]. Forest disturbances are rapidly increasing due to enhanced demand for human services (e.g., biofuel) and global change-associated wild fires, storm felling, and insect attacks [Gauthier et al, 2015].…”

Pelagic food webs of humic lakes show low short‐term response to forest harvesting

“…Considering that forestry is the predominant land use throughout the boreal zone (45°–75° N; Furukawa et al. ), which harbors 30% of the global forest area (Brandt et al. ) and the highest concentration of water bodies worldwide (Downing et al.…”

“…Considering that forestry is the predominant land use throughout the boreal zone (45°-75°N; Furukawa et al 2015), which harbors 30% of the global forest area (Brandt et al 2013) and the highest concentration of water bodies worldwide (Downing et al 2006, Verpoorter et al 2014, our study provides important insights concerning the consequences of forest clear-cutting on pelagic food webs and consumer resource use. Our study clearly illustrates that pelagic food webs of humic lakes (DOC > 15 mg/L) are resilient to forest clear-cutting up to two years after tree removal when leaving buffer strips along connected streams and lakes intact and before site preparation has been performed.…”