TY - BOOK

T1 - Transformation to near-natural forest management, climate change and uncertainty

AU - Schou, Erik

PY - 2012

Y1 - 2012

N2 - Currently transformation from even-aged management to near-natural forest management is being considered or undertaken throughout the Atlantic region of Europe. What in general lies in this transformation is the desire for a higher degree of utilisation in forest management of the natural processes inherent in the forest ecosystem. The motivations for transforming involve economic, biological and social values. At the same time, potential climate changes are expected to change growing conditions of tree species – possibly having a high impact on future forest growth. The purpose of this dissertation was to analyse the effects of general uncertainties, such as climate change uncertainty, on the economics of transformation – how they affect the process and how we can deal with them. In addition to climate change uncertainty, risk of wind throw and price uncertainty were also included. Specifically, the studies of the dissertation analysed changes in stand structure and the choice of species at the stand and forest level. Only the value of timber was considered. Both optimisation and simulation approaches have been applied in the dissertation. Methods include dynamic programming, evolution algorithms, quadratic programming, portfolio theory and Monte Carlo simulation. A number of models have been used including Markov chains, binomial distributions, random walks, and vector autoregressive models. The dissertation comprises four papers. As to the contributions of Paper 1, it is shown how transformation in structure and species composition can be modelled, including risk of wind throw, at the forest level taking into account planning resources available to forest managers. Using a specific case, the dependence on the initial forest structure, when evaluating transformation strategies, was demonstrated. Furthermore, the economic trade-offs between minimising vulnerability to storm damage and the fixed costs associated with harvest interventions through the choice of cutting cycle were demonstrated. The contribution of Paper 2 lies in the demonstration of how expectations on future knowledge arrival may influence the decisions of a forest manager. This may very well be seen when dealing with climate change uncertainty, where we suspect that certainty as to the direction of this change will increase over time, as knowledge is accumulated. The main contribution of Paper 3 lies in the analysis of optimal transformation strategies simultaneously with including climate change uncertainty represented by changes in growth conditions. Thereby, the potential influence of such changes can be assessed. Furthermore, it was shown that a good economic result of transformation may be achieved in several ways. The contribution of Paper 4 lies in the inclusion of several species in an analysis of risk reduction potentials through species diversification, when riskiiis represented by variation in returns. Furthermore, is it shown how climate change uncertainty may be incorporated into a model alongside risk of wind throw and price uncertainty – allowing us to directly analyse risk reducing potentials of diversification under climate chang

AB - Currently transformation from even-aged management to near-natural forest management is being considered or undertaken throughout the Atlantic region of Europe. What in general lies in this transformation is the desire for a higher degree of utilisation in forest management of the natural processes inherent in the forest ecosystem. The motivations for transforming involve economic, biological and social values. At the same time, potential climate changes are expected to change growing conditions of tree species – possibly having a high impact on future forest growth. The purpose of this dissertation was to analyse the effects of general uncertainties, such as climate change uncertainty, on the economics of transformation – how they affect the process and how we can deal with them. In addition to climate change uncertainty, risk of wind throw and price uncertainty were also included. Specifically, the studies of the dissertation analysed changes in stand structure and the choice of species at the stand and forest level. Only the value of timber was considered. Both optimisation and simulation approaches have been applied in the dissertation. Methods include dynamic programming, evolution algorithms, quadratic programming, portfolio theory and Monte Carlo simulation. A number of models have been used including Markov chains, binomial distributions, random walks, and vector autoregressive models. The dissertation comprises four papers. As to the contributions of Paper 1, it is shown how transformation in structure and species composition can be modelled, including risk of wind throw, at the forest level taking into account planning resources available to forest managers. Using a specific case, the dependence on the initial forest structure, when evaluating transformation strategies, was demonstrated. Furthermore, the economic trade-offs between minimising vulnerability to storm damage and the fixed costs associated with harvest interventions through the choice of cutting cycle were demonstrated. The contribution of Paper 2 lies in the demonstration of how expectations on future knowledge arrival may influence the decisions of a forest manager. This may very well be seen when dealing with climate change uncertainty, where we suspect that certainty as to the direction of this change will increase over time, as knowledge is accumulated. The main contribution of Paper 3 lies in the analysis of optimal transformation strategies simultaneously with including climate change uncertainty represented by changes in growth conditions. Thereby, the potential influence of such changes can be assessed. Furthermore, it was shown that a good economic result of transformation may be achieved in several ways. The contribution of Paper 4 lies in the inclusion of several species in an analysis of risk reduction potentials through species diversification, when riskiiis represented by variation in returns. Furthermore, is it shown how climate change uncertainty may be incorporated into a model alongside risk of wind throw and price uncertainty – allowing us to directly analyse risk reducing potentials of diversification under climate chang

UR - https://soeg.kb.dk/permalink/45KBDK_KGL/fbp0ps/alma99121941709505763

M3 - Ph.D. thesis

BT - Transformation to near-natural forest management, climate change and uncertainty

PB - Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen

ER -