Future trade-offs and synergies among ecosystem services in Mediterranean forests under global change scenarios

Alejandra Morán-Ordóñez, Aitor Ameztegui, Miquel De Cáceres, Sergio de-Miguel, François Lefèvre, Lluís Brotons and Lluís Coll

Ecosystem Services, 2020, vol. 45, issue C

Abstract: Mediterranean forests play a key role in providing services and goods to society, and are currently threatened by global change. We assessed the future provision of ecosystem services by Mediterranean pine forests under a set of management and climate change scenarios, built by combining different regional policies and climate change assumptions. We used the process-based model SORTIE-ND to simulate forest dynamics under each scenario. We coupled the outputs of SORTIE-ND with empirical and process-based models to estimate changes in harvested timber, carbon storage, mushroom yield, water provision, soil erosion mitigation and habitat for biodiversity by 2100, and assessed the trade-offs and synergies between services. Our results suggest that future provision of ecosystem services by Mediterranean forests will be more strongly determined by management policies than by climate. However, no management policy maximized the provision of all services. The continuation of the business-as-usual management would benefit some services to the detriment of water provision, but leads to higher vulnerability to extreme drought-events or wildfires. Managing for reducing forest vulnerability will balance the provision of services while reducing the risk of damage to forest functioning. We also found multiple spatial synergies between ecosystem services provision, likely driven by differences in site productivity.

Keywords: Ecosystem services; SORTIE-ND; Forest dynamics; EU-forest policies; Climate change; Multi-functional forest; Climate-smart forestry (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoser:v:45:y:2020:i:c:s2212041620301169

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoser.2020.101174

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