Using Naturalness for Assessing the Impact of Forestry and Protection on the Quality of Ecosystems in Life Cycle Assessment

Sylvie Côté, Robert Beauregard, Manuele Margni and Louis Bélanger
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Sylvie Côté: Department of Wood and Forestry Sciences, Université Laval, Quebec City, QC G1V 0A6, Canada
Robert Beauregard: Department of Wood and Forestry Sciences, Université Laval, Quebec City, QC G1V 0A6, Canada
Manuele Margni: CIRAIG, Department of Mathematical and Industrial Engineering, Polytechnique Montréal, Montréal, QC H3C 3A7, Canada
Louis Bélanger: Department of Wood and Forestry Sciences, Université Laval, Quebec City, QC G1V 0A6, Canada

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 16, 1-29

Abstract: A novel approach is proposed to evaluate the impact of forestry on ecosystem quality in life cycle assessment (LCA) combining a naturalness assessment model with a species richness relationship. The approach is applied to a case study evaluating different forest management strategies involving concomitantly silvicultural scenarios (plantation only, careful logging only or the current mix of both) combined with an increasing share of protected area for wood production in a Québec black spruce forest. The naturalness index is useful to compare forest management scenarios and can help evaluate conservation needs considering the type of management foreseen for wood production. The results indicate that it is preferable to intensify forest management over a small proportion of the forest territory while ensuring strict protection over the remaining portion, compared to extensive forest management over most of the forested area. To explore naturalness introduction in LCA, a provisory curve relating the naturalness index (NI) with the potential disappeared fraction of species (PDF) was developed using species richness data from the literature. LCA impact scores in PDF for producing 1 m 3 of wood might lead to consistent results with the naturalness index but the uncertainty is high while the window leading to consistent results is narrow.

Keywords: life cycle assessment; ecosystem quality; naturalness; biodiversity; potential disappeared fraction of species (PDF); forest management intensity; forestry; protected area; protection target (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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