Anu Korosuo

Impacts of different forest management scenarios on forestry and reindeer husbandry

In northern Sweden, the forests are used simultaneously for both timber production and reindeer husbandry. During the winter months, lichen is the most important fodder for reindeer. Forest management operations are generally considered having a negative impact on reindeer husbandry as harvesting and dense stands remove or obscure the ground lichen cover. In this study, we simulate three different scenarios for forest management, differing in the intensity and types of harvest operations. The resulting 100-year scenarios are analyzed with respect to their estimated suitability for providing reindeer pasture areas. Suitability is determined by vegetation type, stand density and stand height. The results indicate that the current trend of a decrease in lichen area will continue if existing forestry practice prevails. Implementing continuous cover forestry as a management alternative and carrying out precommercial thinning could halt the decrease in reindeer pasture area and even lead to a future increase in pasture area, with losses of approximately 5% in the net present value of forestry.

Combining spatiotemporal corridor design for reindeer migration with harvest scheduling in Northern Sweden

ABSTRACT Reindeer husbandry and commercial forestry seek to co-exist in the forests of Northern Sweden. As interwoven as the two industries are, conflicts have arisen. Forest practices have reduced the distribution of lichen, the main winter diet for reindeer. Forest practices have also increased forest density, compromising the animals’ ability to pass through forested areas on their migration routes. In an attempt to reduce impacts on reindeer husbandry, we present a spatially explicit harvest scheduling model that includes reindeer corridors with user-defined spatial characteristics. We illustrate the model in a case study and explore the relationship between timber revenues and the selection and maintenance of reindeer corridors. The corridors are not only to include sufficient lichen habitat, but they are also supposed to ensure access for reindeer by connecting lichen areas with linkages that allow unobstructed travel. Since harvest scheduling occurs over a planning horizon, the spatial configuration of corridors can change from one time period to the next in order to accommodate harvesting activities. Our results suggest that maintaining reindeer corridors in harvest scheduling can be done at minimal cost. Also, we conclude that including corridor constraints in the harvest scheduling model is critical to guarantee connectivity of reindeer pastures.

Spatially explicit assessment of roundwood and logging residues availability and costs for the EU28

ABSTRACT Competition for woody biomass between material and energy uses is expected to further increase in the future, due to the limited availability of forest resources and increasing demand of wood for material and bioenergy. Currently, methodological approaches for modeling wood production and delivery costs from forest to industrial gates are missing. This study combines forest engineering, geographically explicit information, environmental constraints and economics in a bottom-up approach to assess cost–supply curves. The estimates are based on a multitude of wood supply systems that were assigned according to geographically explicit forestry characteristics. For each harvesting and transportation system, efficiencies were modeled according to harvesting sites and main delivery hubs. The cost–supply curves for roundwood and logging residues as estimates for current time and for the future (2030) show that there are large regional differences in the potential to increase extraction in the EU28. In most EU Member States, the costs of logging residues extraction increase exponentially already for low levels of mobilization, while extraction of roundwood can be increased to a larger extent within reasonable costs (30–40 

Using value functions to elicit spatial preference information

/m3). The large differences between countries in their harvest potential highlight the importance of spatially explicit analyses.

Spatially explicit LCA analysis of biodiversity losses due to different bioenergy policies in the European Union

Decision making in forest planning often involves situations, where the value of the stand is dependent on its location or the properties of the stands nearby. Often the most intuitive tool to describe spatial objectives and outcomes is a visual map. However, evaluating and comparing different maps may prove a considerable cognitive burden, especially over large areas and in long-term planning. In this study, we investigate the use of value functions for eliciting spatial preference information from maps. Our case study is part of a project investigating the possibilities of increasing broadleaf-tree-dominated habitats in a northern Swedish landscape. The experts involved in the project evaluated maps showing different fragmentation patterns. Different spatial indices were then calculated for the maps, and expert evaluations were used to sketch value functions describing the preferred fragmentation level. The approach was found to be a quick way of translating spatial preferences into numerical values and conceptualizing the relatively abstract concept of fragmentation in the landscape. Furthermore, the results show that the choice of a certain fragmentation index has a crucial effect on the value function.

An integrated MCDA software application for forest planning: a case study in southwestern Sweden

In this study, the potential global loss of species directly associated with land use in the EU and due to trade with other regions is computed over time, in order to reveal differences in impacts between the considered alternatives of plausible bioenergy policies development in the EU. The spatially explicit study combines a life cycle analysis (LCA) for biodiversity impact assessment with a global high resolution economic land use model. Both impacts of domestic land use and impacts through imports were included for estimating the biodiversity footprint of the member states of the (EU28). The analyzed scenarios assumed similar biomass demand until 2020 but differed thereafter, from keeping the growth of demand for bioenergy constant (CONST), to a strong increase of bioenergy in line with the EU target of decreasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 80% by 2050 (EMIRED) and with the baseline (BASE) scenario falling between the other two. As a general trend, the increasing demand for biomass was found to have substantial impact on biodiversity in all scenarios, while the differences between the scenarios were found to be modest. The share caused by imports was 15% of the overall biodiversity impacts detected in this study in the year 2000, and progressively increased to 24% to 26% in 2050, depending on the scenario. The most prominent future change in domestic land use in all scenarios was the expansion of perennial cultivations for energy. In the EMIRED scenario, there is a larger expansion of perennial cultivations and a smaller expansion of cropland in the EU than in the other two scenarios. As the biodiversity damage is smaller for land used for perennial cultivations than for cropland, this development decreases the internal biodiversity damage per unit of land. At the same time, however, the EMIRED scenario also features the largest outsourcing of damage, due to increased import of cropland products from outside the EU for satisfying the EU food demand. These two opposite effects even out each other, resulting in the total biodiversity damage for the EMIRED scenario being only slightly higher than the other two scenarios. The results of this study indicate that increasing cultivation of perennials for bioenergy and the consequent decrease in the availability of cropland for food production in the EU may lead to outsourcing of agricultural products supply to other regions. This development is associated with a leakage of biodiversity damages to species-rich and vulnerable regions outside the EU. In the case of a future increase in bioenergy demand, the combination of biomass supply from sustainable forest management in the EU, combined with imported wood pellets and cultivation of perennial energy crops, appears to be less detrimental to biodiversity than expansion of energy crops in the EU.