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BIONÆR-Bionæringsprogram

Decision support models for increased harvest and climate-motivated forest policies

Awarded: NOK 14.3 mill.

Project Number:

210464

Application Type:

Project Period:

2011 - 2019

Funding received from:

Partner countries:

The forest area in Norway represents a large biomass pool that serves as a resource basis for the forestry sector, and at the same time it is the habitat for a large share of the biodiversity in Norway. In a climate context, the Norwegian forest area is a carbon sink with a net annual greenhouse gas sequestration of 25-30 Mt CO2-equivalents, offsetting somewhat more than 50 % of Norway's annual emission of greenhouse gases outside the forest sector. The project is relevant for national climate policy to reduce Norway?s greenhouse gas emissions, where increased timber harvest is a key management measure. The project has developed a national modelling framework that integrates the resource base of the forestry sector, carbon stocks and carbon sequestration, and the value of forest for biodiversity. Furthermore, the project has developed a forest sector scenarios model to produce integrated scenarios under different harvest levels, from today's level of 10 mill m3/year to 15 mill m3/year, for a time horizon until the year 2160. The scenarios include carbon pool and sequestration, effects on biodiversity, economic impact and geophysical climate impact. The project concludes is that it is possible to increase the annual harvest from today's level and improve the climate change mitigation potential while maintaining the value of the forest for biodiversity. This flexibility is related to the fact that the annual timber harvest is much lower than the annual increment in Norwegian forests. The project has also made scenarios under alternative (warmer) future climates. These alternative scenarios indicate potentially larger flexibility since warmer climate is expected to cause increased total growth in Norwegian forests. The methodology from this project has large applied value to revise the Norwegian climate policy. Scenarios from the project will hopefully improve the mutual understanding between different societal groups with different perspectives on active use of forests in the Norwegian climate policy.

It is the goal of the Norwegian government to increase the harvest rate by up to 50% in comparison to the current harvest levels and to increase the use of forest biomass for bio-energy. Harvest of forest influences the economic output of the forest secto r, biodiversity, the forests carbon balance and the possibility to replace fossil fuels which in turn influence climate change. The objective of this project is to increase the knowledge of how increased harvest levels will affect the forest carbon pool, biodiversity, economy and the geophysical climate impact. This project will develop a new national modelling framework and produce scenarios illustrating the effect of increased harvest on the forest carbon pool, biodiversity, economic impact and geop hysical climate impact. Key research challenges are to improve forest dynamics and carbon modelling, to establish feedback functions relating to biodiversity, and to link the improved forest models to economic and climatic assessment tools and methods. This project will be carried out by a multidisciplinary research team in close collaboration with a user group representing forest owners and public forests, environmental and climate agencies. It is the goal that the developed scenarios will enhance the mutual understanding of the possibilities for increased harvest, effects of increased harvest, and tradeoffs related to how the increased harvest levels are implemented. The project will arrange annual workshops that also will be open to the general publi c.

Publications from Cristin

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Funding scheme:

BIONÆR-Bionæringsprogram