Inventory of Forest Attributes to Support the Integration of Non-provisioning Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity into Forest Planning—from Collecting Data to Providing Information

Abstract

Purpose of Review Our review provides an overview of forest attributes measurable by forest inventory that may support the integration of non-provisioning ecosystem services (ES) and biodiversity into forest planning. The review identifies appropriate forest attributes to quantify the opportunity for recreation, biodiversity promotion and carbon storage, and describes new criteria that future forest inventories may include. As a source of information, we analyse recent papers on forest inventory and ES to show if and how they address these criteria. We further discuss how mapping ES could benefit from such new criteria and conclude with three case studies illustrating the importance of selected criteria delivered by forest inventory. Recent Findings Recent studies on forest inventory focus mainly on carbon storage and biodiversity promotion, while very few studies address the opportunity of recreation. Field sampling still dominates the data collection, despite the fact that airborne laser scanning (ALS) has much improved the precision of large-scale estimates of the level of forest ES provision. However, recent inventory studies have hardly addressed criteria such as visible distance in stands, presence of open water bodies and soil damages (important for the opportunity of recreation) and naturalness (here understood as the similarity of the forest to its natural state) and habitat trees and natural clearings (important for biodiversity promotion). The problem of quantifying carbon stock changes with appropriate precision has not been addressed. In addition, the reviewed studies have hardly explored the potential of inventory information to support mapping of the demand for ES. Summary We identify challenges with estimating a number of criteria associated with rare events, relevant for both the opportunity of recreation and biodiversity promotion. These include deadwood, rare species and habitat trees. Such rare events require innovative inventory technology, such as point-transect sampling or ALS. The ALS technology needs relatively open canopies, to achieve reliable estimates for deadwood or understorey vegetation. For the opportunity of recreation, the diversity among forest stands (possibly quantified by geoinformatics) and information on the presence of open water bodies (provided by RADAR, ALS data or use of existing maps) may be important. Naturalness is a crucial criterion for native biodiversity promotion but hard to quantify and assess until now. Tree species identification would be crucial for this criterion, which is still a challenge for remote sensing techniques. Estimating carbon storage may build on biomass estimates from terrestrial samples or on remotely sensed data, but major problems exist with the precision of estimates for carbon stock changes. Recent approaches for mapping the supply side of forest ES are promising, while providing so far uncommon structural information by revised inventory concepts could be helpful also for mapping the demand for ES. We conclude that future studies must find holistic inventory management systems to couple various inventory technologies in support of the integration of non-provisioning ES and biodiversity into forest planning.

Auctioning approaches for ecosystem services – Evidence and applications

“…Using previous review articles as a guideline (Rolfe et al, 2017;Schilizzi, 2017;Bingham et al, 2021;Knoke et al, 2021), our systematic review from query formulation to full text analysis follows the PRISMA diagram (Moher et al, 2009) (Fig. 1).…”

“…Market failures can drive land-use changes that cause serious ecological and social harm (Alig et al, 2003). For example, treating essential forest ES like carbon storage, water purification, and erosion control as uncompensated externalities can contribute to forest loss and degradation (Chen et al, 2019;Knoke et al, 2020), particularly in the tropics (Foley et al, 2007;Knoke et al, 2021). Securing the health and continued vital existence of ecosystems requires new and better tools to capture the value of the services they provide, and integrate those values into decisionmaking (Franklin Jr and Pindyck, 2018).…”

Governing Europe's forests for multiple ecosystem services: Opportunities, challenges, and policy options

“…Other services are usually not accounted for, despite their significant socio-economic importance, such as recreation or non-wood forest products (Sheppard et al, 2020). Biodiversity-related information remains scattered in forest inventories (Knoke et al, 2021, Muys et al, 2022. Demand and access to FES other than wood production, and related changes, have received limited attention in the past, and are thus rarely reflected in management planning.…”

“…European forests are also a significant carbon sink, especially when wood products and substitution effects are included (Ludvig et al, 2021). They store annually around 9 percent of the EU's Greenhouse Gas Emissions (Janssens et al, 2003: Lindner et al, 2017, albeit possibly with a declining trend (Nabuurs et al, 2013), Knoke et al, 2021). In addition, better information about forest owners' preferences, capacities and behaviour in regard to management for FES is an important knowledge base for developing targeted policy instruments (Weiss et al, 2019b).…”

Influence of Forest Management and Sylvicultural Treatments on Abundance of Snags and Tree Cavities in Mountain Mixed Beech Forests

“…Snags have long been considered in forest management as a factor that increases the risk of fires, as well as the accumulation and prevalence of forest pests and diseases. However, since 1970 many studies have been conducted on the positive role of deadwood within forest ecosystems [9,10]. Many species use tree cavities for nesting, roosting, or as a shelter, and the microclimate is important for their life cycle [11].…”