Optimizing forest management in the face of bark beetle risk

Joyce M.N. Romeiro, Victor F. Strîmbu, Tron Eid and Annika Kangas

Ecological Modelling, 2025, vol. 507, issue C

Abstract: The rising impact of the spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus L.) on Europe's forests is becoming a major concern, with climate change intensifying the problem. This situation has sparked discussion across Europe about adopting new, adaptive forest management strategies to mitigate the economic impacts on the forestry sector. Despite this, some regions have yet to fully embrace long-term strategies against bark beetle outbreaks from a climate change perspective. In our study, we examined the effects of integrating bark beetle risk into forest management strategies, considering both current and future climate change scenarios. Our findings indicate that reducing rotation length of low density stands with a high proportion of Norway Spruce situated in more productive sites yields substantial economic advantages. Particularly, regions with a history of bark beetle outbreaks, like Vestfold in Norway, stand to gain significantly from early harvesting. The economic gain from harvesting earlier in this region is projected to increase nearly tenfold over the next 50 years under climate change scenarios. Additionally, we recommend considering the use of mixed tree species within forests as another adaptation strategy, to enhance forest resilience against bark beetle infestations and other natural disturbances.

Keywords: Climate change; Forest management; Disturbance management; Ips typographus; Picea abies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304380025001450
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:507:y:2025:i:c:s0304380025001450

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2025.111160

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Modelling is currently edited by Brian D. Fath

More articles in Ecological Modelling from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().