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More is more? Forest management allocation at different spatial scales to mitigate conflicts between ecosystem services

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Abstract

Context

Multi-objective management can mitigate conflicts among land-use objectives. However, the effectiveness of a multi-objective solution depends on the spatial scale at which land-use is optimized. This is because the ecological variation within the planning region influences the potential for site-specific prioritization according to the different objectives.

Objectives

We optimized the allocation of forest management strategies to maximize the joint production of two conflicting objectives, timber production and carbon storage, at increasing spatial scales. We examined the impacts of the extent of the planning region on the severity of the conflict, the potential for its mitigation, and the strategies that were identified as optimal.

Methods

Using forecasted data from a forest simulator, we constructed Pareto frontiers optimizing the joint provision of the objectives in production forests in Finland. Optimization was conducted within increasing hierarchical spatial scales and outcomes were compared in terms of the severity of the conflict and the solution to mitigate it.

Results

The trade-offs between timber production and carbon storage appeared less severe and could be mitigated more effectively the larger the planning regions were, but the improvements became minor beyond the scale of ‘large forest holding’. The results thus indicate that this scale, approximately 100 stands or 200 ha, is large enough to effectively mitigate the conflict between timber production and carbon storage.

Conclusions

Management planning over relatively small forest areas (200 ha) can mitigate ecosystem service trade-offs effectively. Thus the effective use of multi-objective optimization tools may be feasible even in small-scale forestry.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the Kone Foundation and to the Academy of Finland (project number 275329 to M. Mönkkönen) for funding.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological and Environmental Science, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35, University of Jyväskylä, 40014, Finland

    Tähti Pohjanmies, Kyle Eyvindson, María Triviño & Mikko Mönkkönen

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  1. Tähti Pohjanmies
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  2. Kyle Eyvindson
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Correspondence to Tähti Pohjanmies.

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Pohjanmies, T., Eyvindson, K., Triviño, M. et al. More is more? Forest management allocation at different spatial scales to mitigate conflicts between ecosystem services. Landscape Ecol 32, 2337–2349 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-017-0572-1

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