Renan Goetz

Optimal Forest Management in the Presence of Intraspecific Competition

The Escalator Boxcar Train method is used to solve the distributed optimal control problems of forest management numerically. It takes into account intraspecific competition for scarce resources such as light, space, and nutrients during reproduction, growth, and mortality. It provides an alternative to gradient projection methods and Markov processes. It is implemented with standard software. The application is on the optimal forest management regime in the presence of intraspecific competition.

Efficiency and acceptance of new water allocation rules - The case of an agricultural water users association

Water scarcity is one of the major environmental problems in Southern Europe. High levels of water stress and increasing frequency of droughts, along with a greater environmental protection, make it necessary to design water management strategies that are allocative efficient and balance supply and demand. When functioning markets cannot be developed, the allocation rules proposed in the literature of social choice have been recognized as a suitable alternative. However, the application of new water allocation rules can be impaired by a lack of acceptance and implementation problems. This paper examines these obstacles for the case of an agricultural water users association (WUA), situated in the basin of the River Ebro, in relation to the governance structure and collective decision rule of the WUA. It analyzes the extent to which the gains and losses of the farmers affect their acceptance, and examines conditions for building agreements with side payments that provide incentives for the majority of the farmers to form part of a possible agreement. The results show that the uniform and sequential rules improve the allocative efficiency under normal conditions compared to the status quo and the sequential rule even in the case of droughts. In the presence of side payments this rule is likely to be accepted and has only an insignificant impact on distributional inequality.

MANAGING FORESTS FOR CARBON AND BIODIVERSITY UNDER CLIMATE CHANGE

Over recent decades forest management has recognized the fact that forests provide a wide variety of services besides timber, such as carbon sequestration and the preservation of biodiversity. During this time, science has found significant evidence that climate change is actually taking place. Since the change in climatic conditions will affect the vital cycle of trees, the optimal management of forests needs to be adapted to these new conditions to make the best use of forests from the social point of view. From the policy side, forest management is confronted with the task of balancing the objectives of competitiveness, compliance with international agreements with respect to climate change mitigation and the preservation of biodiversity. This study aims to analyze the optimal management regime of forests under changing climatic conditions, taking timber, carbon and biodiversity into account. It finds that the objectives of carbon sequestration and biodiversity should target different stands. The cost of the latter can be reduced substantially if only mature stands are pursued and not young stands.

Forest Management and Biodiversity in Size-Structured Forests Under Climate Change

Climate change is threatening biodiversity conservation at a global scale, urging the need for action in order to prevent current and future losses. In forestry, the consideration of some stand features such as requiring a certain volume of deadwood and/or large trees as a part of the management regime may help to preserve and enhance biodiversity. However, it is likely to lead to a decrease in the benefits obtained from timber sales. This chapter presents a bioeconomic model that allows the optimal selective logging regime of a size-distributed forest to be determined, while taking climate change and biodiversity into account. It analyzes to what extent structural targets related to biodiversity affect the optimal forest management regime and the profitability of forests. For this purpose, an empirical analysis under various climate change scenarios is conducted for two diameter-distributed stands of Pinus sylvestris in Catalonia. The results show that the costs of biodiversity conservation in terms of reduced profitability can be significant, and augment with climate change.