BESTFOREST - Evaluating Alternative Management Strategies for Increased Climate and Biodiversity Benefits in Boreal Forests
KEY POINTS- Continuous cover forestry
- Carbon balance
- Biodiversity
Project overview
Participants
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Short summary
The BESTFOREST project collects data on timber production, climate effects, and biodiversity in boreal forests managed by Rotation Forestry (RF) and Continuous Cover Forestry (CCF). Using long-term research trials, the project studies how alternative management affects these key ecosystem services.
Boreal forests are a key resource for Sweden’s bio-based economy while providing other important ecosystem services related to climate mitigation and biodiversity. Sustaining these various goals under the climatic changes projected for the boreal region requires adaptive management strategies. For this purpose, a transformation from traditional Rotation Forestry (RF) towards Continuous Cover Forestry (CCF) strategies is debated as a way forward to increase environmental benefits and climate resilience. This debate is however hampered by the lack of comprehensive empirical data which further limits the development of well-constrained management strategies. To fill this gap, we will utilize the unique SITES and IC OS-Svartberget infrastructures co-located in a 68km2 boreal catchment in combination with a series of CCF trial stands. The main objectives are to i) assemble a comprehensive dataset for key ecosystem services including biomass and timber production, climate interactions, and biodiversity values under RF and CCF in a boreal forest landscape, and ii) to integrate this information into a decision-making matrix to support the development of optimized management strategies for boreal forests under
current and future climate conditions. This multi-disciplinary project will deliver an evidence-based knowledge and planning framework as decision-support for forest stakeholders and policy makers.
In BESTFOREST, we will assemble a unique empirical database on biomass production, forest-climate feedbacks and biodiversity values across boreal forests under RF and CCF with the aim to:
Evaluate alternative management strategies for enhancing benefits from key forest ecosystem services in a future climate.
The main objectives are to:
1. Compare forest biomass and timber production between CCF and RF strategies (WP1)
2. Determine the climate impact of CCF and RF as well as the resilience of tree growth and C balance to weather extremes (WP2)
3. Evaluate ecological functions provided in CCF and RF (WP3)
4. Integrate information on key forest ecosystem services into a decision-making matrix to support the development of optimum boreal forest management strategies (WP4)
Approach: To achieve these objectives, we assess key forest ecosystem services including biomass production, climate impact based on terrestrial carbon (C) balance and albedo, and a range of biodiversity functions across contrasting CCF stands trials maintained within the SLU Silvaboreal forest experimental database. As reference, similar data are gathered from RF stands utilizing the unique SITES and ICOS Svartberget infrastructures co-located in the 68km Krycklan catchment which combine >450 forest inventory plots, tall tower eddy covariance measurements of C fluxes, long-term climate monitoring, and historic management records. Together, this provides an excellent testbed for evaluating key ecosystem services provided by alternative CCF concepts against conventional RF. Integrating these data on various ecosystem services in relation to management regime and stand properties into a novel decision-matrix will create an unprecedented support for developing optimized strategies for boreal forest management.
