The history and transformation of a Scandinavian boreal forest landscape since the 19th century

Östlund, Lars; Zackrisson, Olle; Axelsson, Anna‐Lena

doi:10.1139/x97-070

Cited by 397 publications

(126 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Eventually, forestry came to dominate the area. Between the 1850s and the 1950s, selective forestry was the common practice since the settlers mainly used the forest for building materials, fuel wood, and grazing [65]. In 1958, the first application for clear cutting was submitted to the Swedish Forest Agency (SFA).…”

Section: Case Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In 1958, the first application for clear cutting was submitted to the Swedish Forest Agency (SFA). Since then, stand replacement forestry followed by intensive reforestation efforts using soil scarification, planting, and sowing have been the common practice and a major industry [65,66]. Large parts of the river system of Ångermanälven within Vilhelmina municipality were affected by timber rafting (until the 1950s) and the construction of hydro power plants and reservoirs (between the early 1940s and the 1980s) [67].…”

Section: Case Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Visualizing the Forest in a Boreal Forest Landscape—The Perspective of Swedish Municipal Comprehensive Planning

Thellbro

Stjernström

Sandström

et al. 2017

Forests

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Abstract:At the international policy level, there is a clear link between access to information about forests and the work towards sustainable land use. However, involving forests in planning for sustainable development (SuD) at the Swedish local level, by means of municipal comprehensive planning (MCP), is complicated by sector structure and legislation. Currently, there is a gap or hole in the MCP process when it comes to use and access to knowledge about forest conditions and forest land use. This hole limits the possibilities to formulate well-informed municipal visions and goals for sustainable forest land use as well as for overall SuD. Here we introduce an approach for compilation and presentation of geographic information to increase the preconditions for integrating forest information into Swedish MCP. We produce information about forest ownership patterns and forest conditions in terms of age and significant ecological and social values in forests for a case study municipality. We conclude that it is possible to effectively compile geographic and forest-related information to fill the hole in the municipal land use map. Through our approach, MCP could be strengthened as a tool for overall land use planning and hence as a base in SuD planning.

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Section: Case Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Case Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Visualizing the Forest in a Boreal Forest Landscape—The Perspective of Swedish Municipal Comprehensive Planning

Thellbro

Stjernström

Sandström

et al. 2017

Forests

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“…As a consequence, historic information about past land use and human activity plays the key role when we try to explain the modern day patterns in the structure of any specific landscape and species communities within it (Östlund et al 1997;Gerhard and Foster 2002;Bellemare et al 2002;Lõhmus and Lõhmus 2008;Tikkanen et al 2009). Therefore, adding the information about the location and the size of past human settlements to the data can give new insights into the analysis of landscape structures.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As the demand of timber and pulp wood increased after the end of World War II, the destruction of natural landscapes spread even to remote areas which were marginal for agriculture (Lihtonen 1949;Parpola and Åberg 2009). As a result, current forest landscapes in the most parts of boreal Fennoscandia have lost their original natural age distribution and many structural elements typical to natural forests, such as multilayered canopy, dead wood and large diameter trees (Östlund et al 1997;Linder and Östlund 1998;Fridman and Walheim 2000;Lilja and Kuuluvainen 2005;Ihalainen and Mäkelä 2009;Tikkanen et al 2009). Only few larger areas of pristine forest landscape remain in the remote northern and eastern areas of Fennoscandia Kobyakov and Jakolev 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Past human population history affects current forest landscape structure of Vodlozero National Park, Northwest Russia

Tikkanen¹,

Chernyakova²

2014

Silva Fenn.

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Tikkanen O.-P., Chernyakova I. A. (2014). Past human population history affects current forest landscape structure of Vodlozero National Park, Northwest Russia. SilvaFennica vol. 48 no. 4 article id 1207. 17 p. Highlights• In large scale (0-20 km), the proportion of spruce in forest stands was positively affected by distance from old villages. This relationship was non-linear with a threshold distance of 15 km.• In small scale (0-5 km), old villages affected tree species composition and age structure of forests. Effect on age structure was the strongest on stands growing on mineral soils. AbstractThe information about location and size of past human settlements can give new insights into the analysis of landscape structures. Vodlozero National Park (NP) is one the largest strictly protected areas in Northwestern Europe. We mapped the location of historic villages, which were abandoned in 1958, and studied the effect of past human activity in the forest landscape in two different scales using forest survey data. We assessed the possible change in age, volume and tree species composition from the edge of open fields up to the distance of 5 km from villages. We made a larger landscape analysis using a grid of forest stands covering the whole northern part of the NP. The past human activity was clearly visible in the present forest landscape. Distance from villages affected age, volume and tree species composition of the forest stands. This effect was the strongest within the first two kilometers from the villages. At the level of whole northern NP, the proportion of spruce markedly increased after approximately 15 km from the nearest old village. The changes in the forests surrounding the villages were most likely the result of the intensive use of wood for different commodities needed in households and farming, in addition to short rotation slash and burn agriculture. If the occurrence of forest fires was more frequent closer to villages than in more remote areas, it can well explain the observed pattern in the abundance of spruce in the larger landscape that is less tolerant to fire than pine.

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Benchmarking historical CMIP5 plant functional types across the Upper Midwest and Northeastern United States

et al. 2016

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Centennial‐scale climate‐ecosystem feedbacks are a major source of predictive uncertainty for land‐atmosphere fluxes of energy, carbon, and water. Accurate representations of plant functional type (PFT) distributions through time and space are required for modeling centennial‐scale feedbacks within Earth system models (ESMs). We tested the ability of ESMs from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) to capture historical PFT distributions at the time of Euro‐American settlement in the Northeastern United States against a new subcontinental‐scale data set of historical tree abundances derived from forest composition surveys. To identify and diagnose errors in ESM‐simulated PFT distributions and quantify impacts on modeled albedo, net primary productivity, and transpiration, we analyzed actual and modeled PFT distributions with respect to historical mean annual climate and modeled elasticity among PFTs, climate, and vegetation‐atmosphere fluxes. Historical PFT distributions were poorly matched between ESMs and the settlement‐era data, often due to inaccurate PFT‐climate relationships within ESMs, particularly for evergreen trees. Some models exhibited large local, but regionally compensating, errors in simulated albedo, net primary productivity, and transpiration due to inaccurate PFT distributions, while others had systematic regional biases in vegetation‐atmosphere fluxes. Internal variable elasticity varied among ESMs, and these differences closely corresponded to model skill in predicting PFT distributions. New historical benchmarks like the settlement‐era vegetation data provide opportunities to confront ESMs, parse sources of error, and improve simulations of historical and future vegetation‐atmosphere feedbacks.

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The history and transformation of a Scandinavian boreal forest landscape since the 19th century

Cited by 397 publications

References 6 publications

Visualizing the Forest in a Boreal Forest Landscape—The Perspective of Swedish Municipal Comprehensive Planning

Visualizing the Forest in a Boreal Forest Landscape—The Perspective of Swedish Municipal Comprehensive Planning

Past human population history affects current forest landscape structure of Vodlozero National Park, Northwest Russia

Benchmarking historical CMIP5 plant functional types across the Upper Midwest and Northeastern United States

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