Dataset Information

A systems approach to assess climate change mitigation options in landscapes of the United States forest sector.

ABSTRACT:

Background

United States forests can contribute to national strategies for greenhouse gas reductions. The objective of this work was to evaluate forest sector climate change mitigation scenarios from 2018 to 2050 by applying a systems-based approach that accounts for net emissions across four interdependent components: (1) forest ecosystem, (2) land-use change, (3) harvested wood products, and (4) substitution benefits from using wood products and bioenergy. We assessed a range of land management and harvested wood product scenarios for two case studies in the U.S: coastal South Carolina and Northern Wisconsin. We integrated forest inventory and remotely-sensed disturbance data within a modelling framework consisting of a growth-and-yield driven ecosystem carbon model; a harvested wood products model that estimates emissions from commodity production, use and post-consumer treatment; and displacement factors to estimate avoided fossil fuel emissions. We estimated biophysical mitigation potential by comparing net emissions from land management and harvested wood products scenarios with a baseline ('business as usual') scenario.

Results

Baseline scenario results showed that the strength of the ecosystem carbon sink has been decreasing in the two sites due to age-related productivity declines and deforestation. Mitigation activities have the potential to lessen or delay the further reduction in the carbon sink. Results of the mitigation analysis indicated that scenarios reducing net forest area loss were most effective in South Carolina, while extending harvest rotations and increasing longer-lived wood products were most effective in Wisconsin. Scenarios aimed at increasing bioenergy use either increased or reduced net emissions within the 32-year analysis timeframe.

Conclusions

It is critical to apply a systems approach to comprehensively assess net emissions from forest sector climate change mitigation scenarios. Although some scenarios produced a benefit by displacing emissions from fossil fuel energy or by substituting wood products for other materials, these benefits can be outweighed by increased carbon emissions in the forest or product systems. Maintaining forests as forests, extending rotations, and shifting commodities to longer-lived products had the strongest mitigation benefits over several decades. Carbon cycle impacts of bioenergy depend on timeframe, feedstocks, and alternative uses of biomass, and cannot be assumed carbon neutral.

SUBMITTER: Dugan AJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6123328 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

A systems approach to assess climate change mitigation options in landscapes of the United States forest sector.

Dugan Alexa J AJ Birdsey Richard R Mascorro Vanessa S VS Magnan Michael M Smyth Carolyn E CE Olguin Marcela M Kurz Werner A WA

Carbon balance and management 20180904 1

<h4>Background</h4>United States forests can contribute to national strategies for greenhouse gas reductions. The objective of this work was to evaluate forest sector climate change mitigation scenarios from 2018 to 2050 by applying a systems-based approach that accounts for net emissions across four interdependent components: (1) forest ecosystem, (2) land-use change, (3) harvested wood products, and (4) substitution benefits from using wood products and bioenergy. We assessed a range of land m ...[more]

PMID: 30182168

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Project description:The role of forest management in mitigating climate change is a central concern for the Canadian province of British Columbia. The successful implementation of forest management activities to achieve climate change mitigation in British Columbia will be strongly influenced by public support or opposition. While we now have increasingly clear ideas of the management opportunities associated with forest mitigation and some insight into public support for climate change mitigation in the context of sustainable forest management, very little is known with respect to the levels and basis of public support for potential forest management strategies to mitigate climate change. This paper, by describing the results of a web-based survey, documents levels of public support for the implementation of eight forest carbon mitigation strategies in British Columbia's forest sector, and examines and quantifies the influence of the factors that shape this support. Overall, respondents ascribed a high level of importance to forest carbon mitigation and supported all of the eight proposed strategies, indicating that the British Columbia public is inclined to consider alternative practices in managing forests and wood products to mitigate climate change. That said, we found differences in levels of support for the mitigation strategies. In general, we found greater levels of support for a rehabilitation strategy (e.g. reforestation of unproductive forest land), and to a lesser extent for conservation strategies (e.g. old growth conservation, reduced harvest) over enhanced forest management strategies (e.g. improved harvesting and silvicultural techniques). We also highlighted multiple variables within the British Columbia population that appear to play a role in predicting levels of support for conservation and/or enhanced forest management strategies, including environmental values, risk perception, trust in groups of actors, prioritized objectives of forest management and socio-demographic factors.

Project description:BackgroundThe potential contributions from forest-based greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation actions need to be quantified to develop pathways towards net negative emissions. Here we present results from a comparative analysis that examined mitigation options for British Columbia's forest sector. Mitigation scenarios were evaluated using a systems perspective that takes into account the changes in emissions and removals in forest ecosystems, in harvested wood product (HWP) carbon stocks, and in other sectors where wood products substitute for emission-intensive materials and fossil fuels. All mitigation activities were assessed relative to a forward-looking 'business as usual' baseline for three implementation levels. In addition to quantifying net GHG emission reductions, we assessed economic, and socio-economic impacts as well as other environmental indicators relating to forest species, age class, deadwood availability and future timber supply. We further considered risks of reversal for land-based scenarios, by assessing impacts of increasing future wildfires on stands that were not harvested.ResultsOur spatially explicit analyses of forest sector mitigation options demonstrated a cost-effective portfolio of regionally differentiated scenarios that directed more of the harvested wood to longer-lived wood products, stopped burning of harvest residues and instead produced bioenergy to displace fossil fuel burning, and reduced harvest levels in regions with low disturbance rates. Domestically, net GHG emissions were reduced by an average of -9 MtCO2e year-1 over 2020-2050 for a portfolio of mitigation activities at a default implementation level, with about 85% of the GHG emission reductions achieved below a cost of $50/tCO2e. Normalizing the net GHG reduction by changes in harvested wood levels permitted comparisons of the scenarios with different ambition levels, and showed that a 1 MtCO2 increase in cumulative harvested stemwood results in a 1 MtCO2e reduction in cumulative emissions, relative to the baseline, for the Higher Recovery scenario in 2070.ConclusionsThe analyses conducted in this study contribute to the global understanding of forest sector mitigation options by providing an integrated framework to synthesize the methods, assumptions, datasets and models needed to quantify mitigation activities using a systems approach. An understanding of economically feasible and socio-economically attractive mitigation scenarios along with trade offs for environmental indicators relating to species composition and age, helps decision makers with long-term planning for land sector contributions to GHG emission reduction efforts, and provides valuable information for stakeholder consultations.

Project description:BACKGROUNDWe determine the potential of forests and the forest sector to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by changes in management practices and wood use for two regions within Canada's managed forest from 2018 to 2050. Our modeling frameworks include the Carbon Budget Model of the Canadian Forest Sector, a framework for harvested wood products that estimates emissions based on product half-life decay times, and an account of marginal emission substitution benefits from the changes in use of wood products and bioenergy. Using a spatially explicit forest inventory with 16 ha pixels, we examine mitigation scenarios relating to forest management and wood use: increased harvesting efficiency; residue management for bioenergy; reduced harvest; reduced slashburning, and more longer-lived wood products. The primary reason for the spatially explicit approach at this coarse resolution was to estimate transportation distances associated with delivering harvest residues for heat and/or electricity production for local communities.RESULTSResults demonstrated large differences among alternative scenarios, and from alternative assumptions about substitution benefits for fossil fuel-based energy and products which changed scenario rankings. Combining forest management activities with a wood-use scenario that generated more longer-lived products had the highest mitigation potential.CONCLUSIONSThe use of harvest residues to meet local energy demands in place of burning fossil fuels was found to be an effective scenario to reduce GHG emissions, along with scenarios that increased the utilization level for harvest, and increased the longevity of wood products. Substitution benefits from avoiding fossil fuels or emissions-intensive products were dependent on local circumstances for energy demand and fuel mix, and the assumed wood use for products. As projected future demand for biomass use in national GHG mitigation strategies could exceed sustainable biomass supply, analyses such as this can help identify biomass sources that achieve the greatest mitigation benefits.

Dataset Information

A systems approach to assess climate change mitigation options in landscapes of the United States forest sector.

Background

Results

Conclusions

Publications

A systems approach to assess climate change mitigation options in landscapes of the United States forest sector.

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